Our beautiful son Joshua was born with a rare genetic disease- Severe Combined Immune Deficiency (SCID). After a completely normal first year of life Joshua began to suffer recurrent infections, protein losing enteropathy and haemolytic anaemia finally being diagnosed with his disease in May 2019. His care was transferred to Great Ormond Street Children’s Hospital where we were told Josh needed a Bone Marrow Transplant in order to survive. Luckily his amazing big sister was a match and donated her cells to give her baby brother who had just turned 2 a second chance at life. Josh continues on his road to recovery, and spends a lot of time isolated as an inpatient in hospital. That’s where we met Spread A Smile! On the ward at GOSH Josh was often visited by entertainers from this amazing charity who would sing him songs through the intercom and dance at the window for him. Spread a smile also took our girls under their wing and have offered them some once in a lifetime opportunities, which allowed us to give them some happy memories at a very difficult time. As a family we are desperate to turn Joshua’s battle into something positive. We would like to support Spread a Smile and be able to help give other seriously ill children and their families a reason to smile. 

Please visit www.spreadasmile.org to see just how awesome they are!!

Here’s what Spread a Smile have to say:

Our mission at Spread a Smile is to brighten the days of seriously ill children and teenagers in hospital by taking teams of entertainers into paediatric and adolescent wards. We take magicians, musicians, fairies, poets, singers, face painters, artists and Pet Therapy dogs into Great Ormond Street Hospital, University College Hospital, The Royal London, St. Mary’s, The Evelina and RNOH to bring much needed joy to these courageous children and teenagers.We also want to help patients and their families create lasting and positive memories.