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Olive's Army has been assembled to take part in the Endure24 event in Reading on 18th-19th June 2022, a 24 hour trail running relay race, to raise money for the charity Friends of PICU and to celebrate the first birthday of our daughter, Olive.  

FoPICU supports the Paediatric Intensive Care Unit at Southampton General Hospital, where Olive received lifesaving care at both two weeks' and two months' old. 

Olive was born on the 9th June 2021 with Tetralogy of Fallot, a congenital heart condition made up of several defects, the combination of which causes oxygenated and non-oxygenated blood to mix resulting in the overall amount of oxygen in the blood to be lower than normal. Babies with ToF have low blood oxygen saturation and can experience ‘tet spells’ where they turn blue (cyanosis), have difficulty breathing, become limp and occasionally lose consciousness. ToF can be treated with surgery whereby the hole in the heart is closed and the narrowing in the pulmonary valve is opened up. This is usually carried out when the baby is 4-6 months old or approximately 5kg in weight. Without this surgery most children with TOF will not live to adulthood.

When we were discharged from hospital following Olive's birth, we were very fortunately provided with a pulse oximeter for us to measure Olive's oxygen saturation levels and report them to the hospital’s cardiology team. This and Olive's growth would determine when the repair surgery would be carried out.

At two and a half weeks’ old and having only been home from hospital for a week, Olive’s saturation levels dropped below the expected or acceptable levels, and we were asked to take her to hospital for a check-up. Her levels continued to drop whilst being monitored and she was taken to the Paediatric Intensive Care Unit in Oxford, where she was intubated and sedated as her tet spells became more severe. Things became worse still and Olive was transported to Southampton General Hospital, where the cardiac surgeons for the region are located. We couldn’t go in the ambulance with Olive and had to make our own way to the hospital. Shortly before reaching the hospital, we had a call telling us Olive’s condition was critical and she was unlikely to survive the procedure necessary - the installation of a stent. Instead, they would need to put her on an ECMO (extracorporeal membrane oxygenation) machine, which is essentially a heart and lung bypass, in order to buy time. This kept Olive stable and allowed the cardiologists to carry out the procedure with a somewhat lower risk. Olive was on the ECMO machine for 3 days, recovered well from the operation and we hoped we wouldn’t need to return to Southampton for a few months, when she reached the usual age of 4-6 months for total repair surgery.

We were home for three and a half weeks before Olive took us back to hospital in Oxford. She had picked up a cold and this was causing her to have tet spells again, with her oxygen saturation levels getting even lower than they had previously.

We spent just under a week in Oxford, where Olive’s condition was unstable and becoming worse so again she was transferred to Southampton. Fortunately she arrived in a more stable condition than her previous visit and, after a couple of uneventful nights in PICU, she was moved to the cardiac ward where the intention was for her to stay until she was ready to have the repair surgery on her heart; Olive wasn't quite two months old and weighed only 3.7kg so at this point it looked like it might be a long wait in hospital. However within 24 hours of being moved her condition worsened; she was having spells any time she was handled and her oxygen levels were dropping extremely low. Olive was taken back to PICU and it was evident that the surgery would have to be carried out sooner rather than later despite her age and weight. It was scheduled for the following morning but she continued to deteriorate throughout that afternoon and as such the surgery would be carried out as an emergency. 

On that day, where we watched Olive's condition become worse, we were fortunate to have an incredible PICU consultant who, despite having several emergency situations to contend with, ensured that Olive was safe, that we were well informed and, most importantly, made the call to send her to surgery early. The surgeon too was excellent and, although a man of few words, was able to put us at (relative) ease as he took our tiny baby away for the operation. Words cannot describe the relief we felt when he called in the early hours confirming the surgery was successful and we could go see Olive. 

PICU at Southampton General Hospital has saved Olive twice due to equipment like the ECMO machine and, of course, its amazing staff.

For this reason, we would love to be able to support PICU Southampton in continuing their lifesaving work and really hope you'll consider making a donation.