Hello and thank you for coming to Jack's just giving page! Our little man is turning one year old on 21st April and to celebrate his first birthday we want to help raise funds for the Children's Heart Surgery Fund. Jack needed life saving open heart surgery when he was just 11 days old. He was cared for at Leeds GI which is a specialist cardiac unit for babies and children who are supported by this incredible charity.

The Children's Heart Surgery Fund provide life-saving medical equipment for the Leeds Congenital Heart Unit, parent accommodation for families and vital ward resources. They also fund staff training, scientific research and new clinical roles.

Jack's heart condition was hypoplastic aortic arch with coarctation, bicuspid aortic valve, peri membranous VSD and borderline left heart dimensions. In other words, Jack's left ventricle was too small to function due to a narrowing in his aorta and he also had a little hole in his heart.

We needed the surgery to work because the alternative was palliative care for Jack. The doctors couldn't say for sure if it would work due to the nature of the surgery and complexity of operating on such a tiny heart but they were hopeful and we knew that if anyone could fix him it would be them. Jack went for surgery and we got the call to say they had done the operation that we had hoped for, but we would still need to get through recovery to find out if it had really worked. Recovery in intensive care was very hard but Jack did it. He recovered and we came home after 5 weeks in hospital.

The staff at Leeds GI saved his life and there aren't enough words to say thank you for this. One thing we can do is support the Children's Heart Surgery Fund on their mission to help babies like Jack and their families. We are very lucky because Jack had a very successful outcome to his treatment. There are however a lot of other babies and children struggling with heart conditions every day. This is why we want to support this very important charity.

Jack is a very lucky boy who already shares lots of toys with his sister. We would be most grateful if in lieu of presents this year, you would consider a donation towards the CHSF instead. Jack will be under lifelong heart follow-up and will be supported by the CHSF throughout his childhood years, so support for this charity really would help Jack and all the other babies and young children and would be very much appreciated by all.

Thank you for your donations, we are extremely thankful ❤️

If you would like to see exactly where your generous donations are going, please take a look here ...

https://www.chsf.org.uk/how-we-make-a-difference/