We've taken part in the University of Sheffield Big Walk every year, but this year’s cause feels especially close to home.

This year, the Big Walk is raising money for research that could help doctors better understand children’s lungs using new MRI scanning technology.

You may have read one of the case study's for the campaign; the baby feartured is James' son and Jack's nephew, Tamlin.

Tam was born at 27 weeks during the Covid pandemic weighing under a kilo. Very soon after he arrived, he was intubated and put on a ventilator because his lungs were not developed enough for him to breathe on his own.

He spent three months in hospital and had a very bumpy journey through NICU, HDU and SCBU. Twice, attempts to take him off the ventilator failed. On one occasion, after we thought things were improving, he suddenly stopped breathing and had to be resuscitated and intubated again in an emergency. Jack, and the rest of our family, didn't mean Tamlin until he was over three months old.

Thankfully, Tamlin is doing brilliantly now. But what stays with us from that time is the uncertainty. On NICU, you spend so much time watching the numbers on the monitors - oxygen levels, blood gases, alarms, wires and probes - while still not really knowing what is happening inside your baby’s lungs.

We knew the ventilator was helping Tamlin breathe, but also that ventilation could cause further damage. We knew he might come home on oxygen, but nobody could tell us whether that might be for six weeks, six months, or much longer.

That lack of information is incredibly hard to live with.

The research being supported by this year’s Big Walk could make a real difference to families like ours. By using safe gas and MRI scanning, researchers are working on ways to see how lung disease is affecting a child in real time, without relying on more invasive or riskier tests.

For parents, that kind of knowledge would mean a huge amount. It would not take away the fear, but it could make families feel less in the dark.

We're walking for Tamlin, for the doctors and nurses who cared for him, and for the families who will find themselves beside an incubator in the future, watching the numbers and hoping for answers.

Please sponsor us if you can. Every donation will help support life-changing childhood lung disease research at Sheffield.