GOSH GIRLS
Participants: Linda, Sam, Emma, Kelly
Participants: Linda, Sam, Emma, Kelly
Edinburgh Royal Bank of Scotland Kiltwalk 2019 · 15 September 2019 ·
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Hi my name is Jill. On 8th of December 2017 I gave birth to my third beautiful, thought to be healthy, baby boy. Jack Gabriel Gregory.
Everything seemed normal until one of the midwives noticed Jack's breathing was a bit laboured. Jack was taken off to the special baby unit to be monitored. The following morning I was allowed to see Jack. The doctors were unsure what the problem was.
Two days after birth Jack was worse. His wee body was swollen and he had been put on to a ventilator. The decision was made to transfer him to Glasgow Royal Children's Hospital. Further tests and scans were carried out there and it was then discovered that he had a Dural Sinus Arteriovenous Malformation. As a result of this he had heart failure, liver failure and kidney failure.
Unfortunately there was no one in Scotland able to perform the life saving surgery Jack required. Jack and myself went by air ambulance down London and he was admitted to Great Ormond Street Hospital. Jack was in the intensive care unit for a week while the hospital staff did more tests and scans. The interventional radiologist came and saw us and explained what they would do in the operation. Basically they would insert tubes in through vessels in his leg and feed them up into his head. One tube had a camera in it and the other had glue. They insert the tube into the abnormal vessels and release the glue to stop blood flow.
Then the scary part, the chances of survival. He was given a 33% chance of dying, a 33% chance of living and being brain damaged and 33% chance of living and no damage.
As you can imagine this was the worst time of my and Paul's lives as well as all our family. The staff in GOSH were amazing though and we knew Jack was in the best hands.
At 13 days old Jack had his first embilisation. After a long wait we got the call to say he was out of surgery and back in ICU. Thankfully Jack was ok. After another week he was off the ventilator and his organs had started to function properly again.
Jack has been up and down to GOSH a further 5 times. It has taken 4 embilisations in total to cure Jack. He will have another procedure when he is around 3 just to make sure everything still looks ok.
Without GOSH Jack wouldn't be here. It's as simple as that. People may read this and decide it's a hospital far away that their family will never need. We did though. I also met a few other Scottish families down there for other conditions.
If everyone we knew was able to donate £1 each I'm sure we could smash this target and get some money down to this amazing hospital.
Thank you so much for reading love Jill, Paul, Jack Jay and Tristan xxx
Ps walking these distances are actually pretty sore....who knew haha!! Thanks to my fantastic team who are keeping me smiling and motivated through the training. Roll on September!!
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