In November 2025, my sister, Jane & I (Laura) will be trekking across the Sahara Desert & climbing to the top of the massive Chegaga Dunes in aid to raise money for the incredible charity COSMIC - that supports the children & neonatal units of St Mary’s & Queen Charlotte’s hospitals.

Here’s a little bit about why COSMIC is such an important charity to us…

In November 2019, after several severe hospital admissions for bronchiolitis, my daughter Pearl suffered her most serious episode & had to be placed on a ventilator at St Mary’s Hospital Paediatric Intensive Care Unit. Witnessing our baby critical ill and not being able to do anything for her was extremely frightening for my husband, Lewis & I. She was only 14 months old at the time & we did not know if she was going to survive. With the excellent care from the incredible doctors & nurses, our beautiful girl was brought back to us. In addition to the medical care, the team fully supported us navigating such a terrifying time by providing us with accommodation, food, parking permits & liaising with employers. Taking care of all of this for us, meant we were able to just concentrate on our child & helped eradicate additional stress for us. We will forever be indebted to them & could never thank them enough for what they did for our family. We know this challenge is going to be tough but nothing will ever compare to how hard our little girl fought to get better, so we’re doing this for her & all the other little fighters out there!

St Mary’s Children’s Intensive Care Unit is the only unit in the country to specialise in care for children with acute life-threatening conditions such as toxic shock, meningitis, meningococcal septicaemia, bronchiolitis and pneumonia, as well as infectious diseases such as Sars and COVID. Before they were admitted to St Mary’s due to accident or sudden illness, the children were perfectly well. Every year they treat around 500 – 600 desperately sick children from 0 – 18 years old. Some are from the local area, but many, like Pearl, have been rushed to the hospital from Greater London, the South East and the rest of the UK to receive the specialist care that St Mary’s Children’s Intensive Care Unit can provide.

We want to raise as much as we can for this magnificent charity - we appreciate every penny donated. Thank you for taking time to read our story x

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