In 2016 our son James died at just 5.5 weeks old of presumed sepsis despite the heroic efforts of Great Ormond Street Hospital. 3 weeks later GOSH were able to save the life of James' twin sister, Izzy, of an unrelated surgical emergency.

Very soon after these experiences, we decided to raise as much money as possible for GOSH in a special fund within the charity, the Little Jimmy Brighter Future Fund, to honour our son.

To date we have raised over £250,000 to buy life-saving equipment for Great Ormond Street.

In 2017, 106 took on the Royal Parks Half-Marathon in memory of James. This year 53 of us will be running and we will again be keeping up the rear! Any sponsorship you give us here would be very gratefully received.

More information may be read at www.littlejimmybrighterfuturefund.com and our story is given in greater detail below

Huge love and thanks Pete and Emily xxx

Little Jimmy's 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 £260,000 raised in total so far, we have already paid for five new ventilators for GOSH in Jimmy’s name and are well on our way to kitting out two theatres state-of-the-art surgical theatres. More information about our shopping basket can be found here: https://www.littlejimmybrighterfuturefund.com/shopping-list

More information may be found at www.littlejimmybrighterfuturefund.com

A video of our story made by Amazon Prime can be viewed on these links:

Please join us in fundraising and/or give what you can.

Love and gratitude from Pete, Emily, Lexy and Izzy Shaw xx