Arthur was postnatally diagnosed with Treacher Collins Syndrome, which caused him to have an extremely narrow airway and meant that he was tube fed from birth. Arthur's breathing quickly deteriorated and led to him spending the first three months of his life in hospital. The majority of this time Arthur was very unstable and remained in the Paediatric Intensive Care Unit at LGI. As parents, we spent every moment we could by Arthur's side, but were unable to stay overnight on PICU. Thanks to the Sick Children's Trust, we were able to stay in one of their 'Home from homes' next to the hospital. Eckersley house was our safe place close to our boy when our home no longer felt like home without him.

One night at 4am we got the worst call you can imagine as a parent, telling us that Arthur had a cardiac arrest and for us to get to PICU as quickly as we could. We were able to run to the ward and be straight with him. I couldn't have imagined having to drive in to be with him after receiving that news and are thankful that we were able to be with him within minutes as his condition deteriorated further.

Arthur is now a happy, healthy (nearly) three year old, just with a few extra tubes! Arthur uses British Sign Language signs as well as speech as having a tracheostomy coupled with hearing loss makes it more difficult to communicate verbally, and BSL gave him a voice when he would have otherwise been silent. For his birthday month of September we would like to try and give back to the Sick Children's Trust and Eckersley House so that they can continue to support families at their most vulnerable and lonely time. Arthur, with a little help from us, will be uploading videos throughout September showing people the different British Sign Language signs that he uses to communicate.

It is important to note that we are not qualified BSL tutors, we are just two parents who wanted to learn what we could to help our son and are undergoing our own BSL journey through a qualified BSL instructor. As BSL has its own grammar and sentence structure, we chose to use Sign Supported English with Arthur (using the same sentence structure as English) but using BSL signs which has improved his communication dramatically. Signs differ depending on what region you are from, so you may see people using different signs for the same thing. We are not intending to teach through these videos, but hope that as well as raising money for a charity close to our hearts, it may raise awareness of BSL and inspire more people to take up a course with a qualified BSL instructor.