Hello All

Thanks for visiting my just giving page, I am raising money for Great Ormand Street Hospital as a way of thanking them for the excellent life saving treatment they gave to a close family friend and to help them continue the fantastic work that they do. The Minshall family, Owen, Tash, Grace and Amber have had their lives turned upside down in the last 3 weeks and have a long road to recovery ahead...

On Friday 17th February Owen and Tash's 10 year old daughter Grace was referred to James Paget Hopsital - Great Yarmouth for a troublesome cough and breathing difficulties, this appeared to be a routine chest X-ray, the next few hours (and weeks) were to prove anything but routine. On viewing the chest X-ray the doctors broke the news that Grace had fluid around her heart and needed to be flown by helicopter to Great Ormand Street, her body was full of fluid which was putting pressure on her heart. Grace was flown that night to GOSH where they would assess her and operate to remove the fluid, the next day she was operated on and assessed which brought further devastating news, the fluid in her body was being caused by Leukaemia, Grace spent the next week under heavy sedation and they nearly lost her more then once, thankfully they saved Grace and eventually started to bring her out of sedation which she didn't seem to respond to, they then discovered that during the operation Grace had suffered a stroke on top of everything else. I know how upsetting this has been for all close friends and family but you just can't begin to imagine how Owen and Tash dealt with each devasting bomb as it dropped.

Nearly 4 weeks on and Grace has made great progress so far she has regained some movement and her speech but still has a very long road ahead, she has been transferred from GOSH and taken to Addenbrooks in Cambridge to continue her treatment for Leukaemia, Grace's determination to get better is so strong and she hasn't lost any of her fantastic sense of humour (literally one of the funniest girls I know, especially when abusing my Blazer wearing antics or my use of out of date street slang) and we are all praying she kicks the s*** out of this as quick as possible, when Grace is able she would like to bake a Victoria sponge the size of her dad's head!! Her little sister Amber (pictured below sporting her Sick Childrens Trust hoodie and money from the tooth fairy) has been enjoying sleepovers at ours and other close friends plus spending time at the hopstial with the family. Owen and Tash would like to thank everyone for their support, the amazing staff in the intensive care unit as well as the staff on the Giraffe Ward at GOSH, the London Air Ambulance and The Sick Children's Trust who have been housing them in London for the last 3 weeks, I have promised to do a couple more rides to raise money for those all important charities further down the line.

Please join me in wishing the family well and watch this space for updates on Grace.

PS Grace is a massive Harry Potter fan so if anyone has Radcliffe or Rowling on speed dial you know what to do! 

Thanks in advance, Jon