Our son, James (Little Jimmy) died at just one month old at Great Ormond Street Hospital. Three weeks later they saved the life of his twin sister Isabel. So far, we have bought GOSH five ventilators in Jimmy's name to honour his memory. Please help us buy them even more life-saving equipment. If we raise a further £97,000 (£263,000 total) we will buy GOSH an ECMO (heart-lung bypass) machine; if we raise a further £237,000 (£403,000 total) we will kit out a whole theatre to perform specialist gastrointestinal neonatal surgery like both Jimmy and Isabel received.
You can follow our grand total (combining all our contributors and events pages) on this link (total now over £166,000): https://www.justgiving.com/remember/407805/James-Shaw
Our story:
On 21st September 2016 our baby boy James William Shaw was born. Three minutes later his twin sister Isabel followed, two beautiful new siblings for our 18 month-old daughter Alexa. Jimmy really was exceptionally handsome with a full head of auburn hair with a highlight streak of blond on his crown, which had seemingly already undergone a designer haircut/styling, so that the nurses at Queen Charlotte’s Hospital nicknamed him ‘One Direction’. Both twins were thriving at home and we were excitedly beginning to look to the future together as a family of five.
At just five and a half weeks old our little Jimmy became suddenly, unexpectedly and desperately unwell with presumed sepsis (an overwhelming infection) and a complicating blood clot to his bowel. Despite the heroic efforts of the staff of our local hospital, the Children's Acute Transfer Service (CATS) ambulance team and ultimately Great Ormond Street Hospital Intensive Care Unit, Jimmy could not be saved. He died in our arms on the evening of 31st October, covered in the kisses of his mummy and daddy who told him how loved he was. It is beyond words how traumatised we were left by those 2 days of seeing him so desperately unwell and how bereft Jimmy’s death left us, our hearts were truly broken.
Three weeks after Jimmy died, and just two days after we had buried him, his twin sister Izzy too suddenly became unwell of an unrelated condition (a diaphragmatic hernia with malrotation), we were just seemingly that unlucky. Within 24 hours Izzy was undergoing emergency, life-or-death surgery at Great Ormond Street. We genuinely believed we were going to lose a second child that day, it was nothing short of torture. Thankfully Izzy’s operation was successful and she recovered.
Jimmy's mummy Emily is a hospital doctor, and can hand-on-heart honestly say that in 12 years experience as a clinician has never seen such a unanimous, continuous and determined effort and bloody-minded resolve to save a life as with Jimmy. The medical staff gave blood, sweat and tears to save our little boy, he received the best possible care in the world, by the most humane doctors and nurses we have ever met and for that we are beholden to them. Beyond the world-class care both he and Izzy received at GOSH, our family received unbounded care and kindness, practical support (such as neighbouring accommodation) and pastoral support that continues to this day (including bereavement counselling). GOSH gave us our very best hope of saving Jimmy, saved the life of Izzy and took extremely delicate and humane care of us parents in the process.
Very soon after these experiences we became resolved on trying to repay some of our perceived incalculable debt to GOSH, nurture something positive out of such a tragic loss and continue to strive to keep Jimmy’s memory alive. We are pulling together an army of impossibly loyal family and friends to join us in fundraising a hugely ambitious amount of money for GOSH, specifically in Jimmy’s name, as his legacy.
With over £160,000 raised in total so far, we have already paid for five new ventilators for GOSH in Jimmy’s name (we needed £103,800 for these in all). These include 'Sophie' ventilators for the Children’s Acute Transfer Service (CATS) team bringing sick newborns, babies and children to GOSH, while the other will be used within GOSH. For the first time, these will enable very sick children to be transferred whilst receiving the most intensive ventilation ('oscillation') available. Up until now (Sophie ventilators have only recently become available), the CATS team have had to 'step-down' babies and children being transferred to GOSH from oscillators onto conventional, transfer ventilators when being taken to GOSH for specialist care, which has jeopardised their deteriorating. Dr Ramnarayan, lead GOSH consultant for CATS (who also happened to have been the doctor who stabilised Jimmy sufficiently to transfer him to GOSH) believes that this may make all the difference for 25-30 of the sickest children every year. Help us buy GOSH buy even more life-saving equipment! What we buy next depends on how much we can raise: If we raise a further £97,000 (£263,000 total) we will buy GOSH an ECMO (heart-lung bypass) machine; if we raise a further £237,000 (£403,000 total) we will kit out a whole theatre to perform specialist gastrointestinal neonatal surgery like both Jimmy and Isabel received.
Please join us in fundraising and/or give what you can. Please email us at littlejimmybrighterfuturefund@gmail.com if you would like to join us in a fundraising event.
Love and gratitude from Pete, Emily, Lexy and Izzy Shaw xx
You can donate directly here.
Please if you wish to send us a cheque, make it out to Great Ormond Street Hospital Children’s Charity or GOSHCC. If you are donating through your work payroll, please use charity number 1160024
Please follow us and share our links on these mediums: Facebook: @littlejimmybrighterfuturefund Twitter: @littlejimmybff Instagram @littlejimmybff
Our GOSH shopping basket to-date:
5 ventilators for the GOSH ambulance (CATS team) (£103,800 total):
2x Sophie Ventilators (at £27,000 each)
3x Hamilton Ventilators (at £16,600 each)
Press:
Evening Standard: https://www.standard.co.uk/news/health/parents-of-twin-boy-who-died-fundraise-for-equipment-to-save-30-babies-a-year-a3655666.html
Huffington Post: http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/pete-shaw/the-steps-we-take-to-try-_b_18224892.html
Islington Gazette: http://www.islingtongazette.co.uk/news/islington-couple-raise-100-000-for-great-ormond-street-hospital-in-memory-of-baby-son-james-who-died-a-year-ago-1-5225815
Islington Tribune: http://islingtontribune.com/article/jimmy-the-baby-who-left-150k-legacy-to-hospital
Calendar of Events raising funds in James' memory:
19/02/17 - First Aid Training for parents - Felicity Fitzgerald, Tom Simpson, Luke Starling, Tessa Greenslade, Jane Hassell, Sonia Khemlyani, Aileen Marks, Rebecca Lowe, Tara Lyons, Katherine Parsons
26/02/17 - Brighton Half-Marathon Eleonoora Kirk
12/03/17 - First Aid Training for parents - Felicity Fitzgerald
03/04/17 - Paris Marathon - Steven New
23/04/17 - London Marathon - Emma Sherwood
24/04/17 - Great Haringey Bake-Off hosted by Wood Green Police Station
14/05/17 - Regents Park 5K Superhero Run - Mehrnaz Wise, Emily Shaw and Marieke Montgomery
28/05/17 - Edinburgh Marathon - Eleonoora Kirk
June 2017 Maggie and Simon get married with and have picked donations to our fund in lieu of wedding presents
10-11/06/17 - Nightrider 100K - Tom Simpson
11/06/17 - Coffee Morning and Bake-Off hosted by Phyl Shaw, Upton, Peterborough
11/06/17 - Dave's 40th Glamping trip auction of leftover supplies
09/07/17 - 100km cycle - Lorraine Turnell
20/06/17 - Nan Zhang and Saad Sohail are encouraging their work colleagues to fast through the day and donate the money they would have spent on meals
29/07/17 - Ride London - Des Fahy and Craig Middleton
08/09/17 - Rebecca Lowe is hosting a fundraising Ping Pong tournament https://www.tickettailor.com/checkout/view-event/id/109745/chk/231b/
09/09/17 - MA and LF are asking for donations to our fund in lieu of birthday presents for their daughter S's first birthday
16-17/09/17 Revolve24 - Adam Trunoske and colleagues
08/10/17 - 106 of our friends and family are running the Royal Parks Half-Marathon #100forLittleJimmy https://www.justgiving.com/teams/100forLittleJimmy
03/12/2017 - 13 of our friends and family (including Izzy and Lexy!) are running the GOSH Santa Dash
07/12/2017 - Pete and Emily speech at GOSH 'Evening of Thanks'
15/12/2017 - Love Volcano Christmas Gig at Chats Palace 42-44 Brooksbys Walk, E9 6DF London, 7-11pm, tickets available from https://www.tickettailor.com/checkout/view-event/id/126503/chk/cce9/
12/2017 UCS School in Hampstead have chosen our fund as one of their nominated charities for their Community Action Week Fundraising
22/04/18 - London Marathon - James Montgomery
22/04/2017 - Madrid Rock 'n' Roll Half-Marathon - Julia Howard
Marieke (Jimmy's Godmother) is donating all profits from the sale of her beautiful handmade children clothes https://www.etsy.com/shop/mariekeanna
Kierstin (Jimmy's Auntie) is donated all profits from the sale of her crocheted good in January - March 2017
