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On Wednesday 16th - Thursday 17th July 2025 a group of firefighter will be cycling 200 miles from Lands end to Watchet over two days with lots of elevation raising money for The Grand Appeal.

This year marks 10 years since our daughter Imogen was admitted to Bristol Children's Hospital where she had open heart surgery at just 8 weeks old.

Here is a bit of the background story of why we are raising money for this amazing charity.

Imogen was born with a heart defect (Ventricular septal defect, Arterial septal defect and regurgitation). Through the echo the doctors found 3 holes within her heart. Unfortunately Imogen fell into 1/3 category of it not being diagnosed until she became seriously ill. We visited local surgeries 3 times within the first 4 weeks of her being born as she wasn't keeping feeds down to be told she was ok and all vital checks were fine. We were waking her every 4 hours for a feed because she was so lethargic, she wouldn't wake up herself for one. As soon as Imogen drank her bottle she would bring it all up a few minutes later. Her birth weight stayed the same for 5 weeks which was 6lb 14oz. We finally followed instincts and instead of trying local surgery again we went to Musgrove (Taunton) where they carried out more in depth tests and found she had a heart murmur. We were then given a an outpatients appointment at Bristol Children's Hospital the next day, When we arrived they carried out ECG'S, ECHO'S and all other tests where we then had that devastating news that Imogen had these holes in her heart. Imogen was then admitted to the HCU where we all then stayed until they could came up with a plan of action, Me and Ellouise stayed in Bristol for just over a month so we could be with Imogen everyday. The surgeons wanted Imogen to get to 11lb before they were happy to carry out the surgery but due to her condition she still couldn't keep the milk down even after inserting a feeding tube. Imogen just wasn't putting on the required weight so the surgeons made the decision they had to operate as soon as possible after 6 hours we where called in to give us the news they have managed to repair all 3 holes within her heart. The next few days Imogen was in ICU where she was on a ventilator until they where happy for her to be taken off this and start breathing on her own again. Just over a week later we were cleared to go home with Imogen where to this day you would not believe she went through this.

we cannot thank all the staff enough for what they did for us all over the period they where truly amazing and we want to try raise more money for the charity to help more children and families that have to go through something like this.

Please if you can donate even if its £1 all money raised will be a great help.