So as some of you may be aware my daughter Abigail’s not had the easiest start in life, this started with a dairy allergy which we now have under control, that however was a minor detail for what life was going to throw at us in the first 5 years of her life. This started with excessive drinking from a very young age no matter how much you distracted her she would drink from anything or anywhere including bubble mixture. She was originally  referred Basingstoke Hospital for tests as they suspected she was diabetic, she underwent numerous tests, including a 24 hour water deprivation test which was pretty traumatic. They had to stop the tests for this due to her safety and the results came back in conclusive and we were then referred to Southampton Children’s Hospital where she underwent more tests, again including a water deprivation tests only this one was 48 hours as a 3 night stay on G3 her blood sugars dropped so again we had to stop this and it came back inconclusive but they ruled out diabetes insipidus. During this time Abigail was constantly suffering from Urine Infections and extremely high temperatures, after having 10 in the spaces of about 6-7 months they referred her for scans on her bladder and kidneys. This is when we got the heartbreaking news that our daughters kidneys weren’t working properly and she would need yet more tests... this was totally out of the blue and not what we were expecting to hear. But a possible answer to why our daughter was always so poorly. She went on to have a variety of different scans on her kidneys and bladder which for a 3 year old ( actually a child of any age was pretty intrusive) but we went with it and she took it all in her stride. This was when we found out she had severe grade 5 reflux in her left and grade 3 in her right kidney and both working at a low percentage. We were told she would start long term antibiotics and would need an operation. 

She had the first operation in July 2018 where they put gel into her tubes to try and resolve the reflux, at this time they found the tubes from her kidney to her bladder were also in the wrong place so expressed that although they were hopeful they didn’t know if they operation would work. Fast forward on and constant urine infections and more scans, we found out in February 2019 that the operation hadn’t worked and she’s would be again booked in for emergency surgery again, this was done 2 days later. Again we were very hopeful this would be the end of it would resolve the issue. We soon realised that this was not the case. During these operations she has a hard time reacting to the anaesthetic and needing to be re admitted to hospital. Following on from the surgery we had more scans and saw the urologist who suggested that the best option would be open surgery to move her tubes from her kidneys to her bladder.

This was done as urgent again in July 2019, Abigail was in theatre for 5 long hours, they only did the left side as it was worse than they were expecting, but happy with the out come of the operation. Abigail and I spent most the summer in Southampton hospital on G4 due to complications after the surgery, with lots of different catheters. But we are now catheter free and although not infection free Abigail is doing well and in all this is such a little fighter she takes it all in her stride and although finds the hospital visits hard she takes it all in her stride. She really is an amazingly strong little girl who is proud of her scars across her tummy and will talk happily about all the tubes and operations. I’m super proud of how resilient she’s been over the last 18-2years. . 

G4 was like our second home and we really can’t thank them enough for all their constant support through out all this, through all the tears and tantrums, pain and every other emotion we went through whilst we were there. By running this half marathon on the 26th April in Southampton I hope to one achieve something I have never done before and complete a half marathon but also I want to raise as much money as I can for such an amazing hospital! 

It’s not just Abigail they have helped and supported through all this it’s myself and all the family who came to visit, especially her older brother Freddie who found it extremely hard being away from us and visiting us whilst Abigail was in hospital. They were always there with things for him to do and activities for him to do with the play specialist. 

If anyone can help in any way it really would be much appreciated 😘😘