13/08/2026
( SUPER Long Post Alert ⚠️)
George Is T E N !!!!! 🩷🎂🎁
Georges Birthday celebrations kicked off early last night with a lovely trip to McDonald's. Whilst we were there we thought we would pop to the PRH for some platelets too...
Georges platelet count was 17. Bu**er.
He hated it. And I dont blame him, but once the cannula was in he was golden.
We missed the eclipse but thankfully facebook didnt, so we enjoyed looking at everyone else's photos and posts.
We got home late, just in time for us to wrap his birthday presents and blow balloons up 🩷 Sam and i watched some of the meteor shower on the deckchairs in the garden. We saw dozens of shooting stars and i wished on every one ✨️
George slept until 7.30 and woke up with a start saying 'Oh my god... i am 10' 😂
George was eager to open his presents and was very happy with his Occulus. He has been banging on about having a VR headset for months. Its all he talks about so to see his excited little face made made the eye watering price tag worth it.
Unfortunately today I am ill. I have a chest infection and adverse reaction to the antibiotics given 🤮🤢 So whilst George is celebrating with family and friends at home i am camping out at my mums. I hope to god I have not already passed anything on to George 😪
I cant belive it is a whole decade since George was born.
He was in a hurry to be born and hasn't slowed down since.
When he was born he latched on beautifully and fed well and i remember feeling so complete and content. I had been momentarily disappointed at the Gender scan that Sam and i were having another boy. 3 boys... 😱 A life time of being the odd one out !
George became seriously unwell the next day. That day and the 6 weeks that followed will always be etched in my memory. George had slept through the night he was born, when the midwife asked how many times he had woke to feed in the night I said 'none, he slept though'. Mentally high fiving myself for giving birth to a legend ! He struggled to feed all day and brought up large amounts of vomit. By evening he had only had a tiny amount of SMA force fed to him by the midwife and he had vomited that up too.
When the midwife who delivered him came back on shift I told her he wasnt feeding and 'not right'. She said to strip off, both of us, and have some skin to skin whilst she was having handover and she would come and sit with us.
However when I stripped George off and put him against me he let out the worst cry. He had been pretty quiet until that moment, it was a painful cry. I gently lay him back in my arms and he had gone a strange pale cour and his tummy was shiny, especially around his belly button. You could see the veins around it buldging. The HCA came in and George was wisked off to the other end of the hospital. Unbeknownst to me he was being intubated after getting lots of green bile from Georges tummy. A ambulance was called. I rang Sam. Another frantic phone call was made saying that if a land ambulance was unavailable they would need the air ambulance, the baby needed to get to PRH ASAP.
I paced. Sam came, he went to find out what was happening. I couldn't go. I did not want to see my baby like that. And shockingly I thought to myself if he was going to die, I didnt want to get further attached. Its insane what your brain comes up with in a crisis isnt it.
Finally the ambulance came. The midwife who delivered George travelled with him in the ambulance and Sam drove us to Telford to meet them there. We arrived about the same time and George was taken into a neonatal ward with other tiny babies. I remember a female doctor, I asked her why George was making a groaning grunting sound. She coldly told me that he was in a great amount of pain. I know I wasnt the priority at that moment but that was my one day old baby, yellowing and fighting for his life, I was petrified and confused and at that moment in time not in need of such response. I swallowed down the want to rip her hair off her head and we were sent to the parents room whilst they hooked George up to machines and gave him meds. We were then sent to a side room on the ward. All around us were the sounds of babies crying and it felt so cruel. After a while a doctor came to see us and told us that george either had a twisted bowel or an infection. They were unsure and he would need to be transferred to either Birmingham Childrens Hospital or Great Ormond Street. Which ever had a bed. As he would need emergency surgery. We made our way back to George. He looked so vulnerable and sick. The Doctor pulled us to one side and said that a ambulance was coming from Birmingham, they had a bed in the intensive care unit. We were told that George was very sick and there was a high possibility that he may not make it to Birmingham. The words felt like a kick in the stomach. I have only ever felt that twice in my life, then and when George was diagnosed with cancer.
I told Sam that I hoped that it was a twisted bowel. Infections are rogue, you dont know where you stand with them.
When the ambulance came George was transferred into a baby therm and a Doctor and a nurse were also with us. The doctor was a little Scottish lady. I felt safe in their hands. They gave me a charger to charge my phone and a little pack with a carton of juice a fredo and some crisps. Sam had to make his own way there and was told under no circumstances was he to pull over on the hardshoulder if we did. He not so politely said that he had just been told his son might die and he would pull over.
The doctor and nurse monitored George the whole way. Altering levels on the baby therm. It was surreal. We pulled up at B*H and I remember feeling relived and safe. George had survived the jouney and we were now at the best place.
Sam arrived shortly after, whilst George was being transferred. He came into the family room and crumbled. He had been so strong, it was my turn now. Im a runner. At the first time of crisis I am off, whereas Sam steps up. And then once we have both processed the situation we swap roles momentarily.
We were told that we could have a emergency family room whilst George was in surgery. Just before 6am Dr Lander came to see us with a consent form. He explained that George needed surgery. Without it he would die, but he needed to be clear with us that George was extremely sick and there was a high chance he could die during the operation. We signed, sat and waited.
Dr Lander reappeared after a while and explained to us that George had an infection called NEC (Necrotising enterocolitis) it usually appears im premature babies so it was rare for a full term 8lb 9oz baby to have, but he did. Dr Lander and his team had opened Georges tummy up, gave him a stoma and assessed the damage. There was a mass of infected bowel and a perforated colon. Dr Lander explained that they would have to give his bowel a rest and see what happens. George was not out of the woods yet.
The next few days were a blur. I remember sleeping on the plastic sofa in the parents room with a packet of maternity pads covered in my cardigan as a pillow. After a day or so we were told we had a room at the Ronald McDonald house and I remember feeling so greatful. We were not allowed to stay with George over night in PICU and all of th 30 children in there had one to one nursing around the clock, so we were told to rest. I got mastitis. I was unable to feed George as he was nil by mouth and my body struggled to express away from him. I remember the small room nursing mums would go to to try and express with out breast pumps. Trolls the film had not long come out and more often than not Justin timberlake would be on the radio singing 'cant stop the feeling'. One day I sat in there forever to and managed to get about 15ml of milk that would be frozen, I kicked it over and remember crying so hard. I felt like such a failure. George went back to surgery and had the stoma reversed, he also had a resection of 35cm of dead bowel. He was doing ok. He was boggy from surgery, his little body had swollen up like a ballon so he was given frusamide to try and get him back to normal. Every day a different challenge with rear its ugly head. One night we were rang on the room phone at the Ronald. It was Georges nurse just ringing to say that george had pulled his breathing tube out and had to be reintubated. George had a spate of SVT's, his heart rate would shoot up. I would be sat reading and look up to lots of staff around his bed trying to stabilise his heart rate. The Cardiology team came one afternoon and Sam and i overheard a familiar word. PDA. Paitent ductus aortris. It was where the little flap in the heart stays open, when we are in urtero our mother's blood runs through it and shortly after birth it closes naturally. We knew this because Georges older brother Archie had it. And had a ligation at 18 months old. At my 20 week scan a Cardiologist was present and I asked him what the chances of George having a PDA were, he confidently told me it was a million to one, it wasnt hereditary. The team explained that Georges PDA was significant and was starving some of his organs of oxygen. They believe this is why the NEC spread so rapidly. George would need a ligation but there would have to be a meeting to discuss the procedure as the intravenous ligation Archie had would not be safe for Georges tiny veins.
At 13 days old George had his PDA ligation. The cut his back open on the left side, delated his lung, shifted it out of the way and inserted a titanium clip and wrapped some silk fiber around something else. The heart op, as hideous as it sounded didnt worry us as much as the first two. I suppose in those 2 weeks George had got stronger and wasnt as high risk. After his surgery he was moved to Surgical neonatal ward, it was staffed differently, 2 children to each nurse. This frightened the living s**t out of me. I was obsessed with watching his monitor. I would sit there keeping an eye on it. One day i noticed that his heart rate was getting higher. I kept pecking the nurses heads about it. But he developed a low grade fever too and was given antibiotics as they were worried it was the onset of sepsis.
George spent 4 weeks in the NSW. We celebrated EID with a lovely family who brought curry onto the ward for us all. I celebrated my birthday there too. We had many visitors, family and friends. And then one day George was sent for a ultra sound of his head. They said it was routine, babies that had been in intensive care often had these scans because the skull hadn't fused together and they can have a look at the brain. When we went for the scan the doctor took a particular interest in one area. He wasnt going to tell me when I asked if it was all ok. Instead a male nurse floated by a few days later and casually said that there was abnormalities on Georges brain scan. That was it. No explanation or follow up. So once again I pecked the nurses, especially the nurse in charge. She was a stern older lady, but I wore her down 😂 they sent a neurologist from the QE to talk to Sam and i. He explained that there were abnormal patches on his frontal horns. They could get worse but they will never get better. George would be monitored in the community once home and a MRI would be carried out. He couldn't tell us what this meant for George but he said it could mean that he could have a learning disability, have problems with mobility and speech. It was uncertain.
We left Birmingham shortly after and at 7 weeks old a lady came to the house to do Georges newborn hearing test as he had missed it being in hospital.
Jack and arch were excited and jumping around about the place and the lady said that George had 'failed' it could of been because the environment was noisy, but she would book him a hearing test at The Royal Shrewsbury Hospital. When she went george was asleep on the sofa. I got two metal saucepans and banged them together above him. Nothing. He didnt flinch when the boys screamed and shouted and he slept like a absolute rockstar. I would have to set an alarm to make me in the night to feed him.
We went up to Shrewsbury for the hearing test and whilst we waited in the corridor he slept in my arms. Suddenly the fire alarm went off above us. Nothing. We didnt really need the test. We knew George was deaf. He was diagnosed with Autitory Nuropathy spectrum disorder. Deafness that can cut in and out like static on a radio. The hairs in his cochlear were damaged and unable to send the sounds to the nerves and brain. George was bialterally profoundly deaf.
He had hearing aids for the first 12 months. To see if there would be any maturisation in the auditory nerves. There wasnt and at 18 months old he recieved bilateral cochlear implants.
George has had a whirlwind of a first 10 years. He has put 110% into everything he does. A consultant once told us that he doubted if george would be toilet trained. And one day at 3.5 years he toilet trained himself. He wanted to be a big boy like jack and arch. He has learnt to talk, learnt to walk and smashed therapy for years. It is cruel that some of the skills that George had to struggle to learn will be effected by his brain tumor and the treatment he has received.
Georges prognosis is sketchy and we dont know what the future holds for him. I hope with everything I have that we are here in 10 years time celebrating his 20th Birthday. But i do know that he is a real fighter and if he want something he will get it, whether it being a VR headset, pronouncing F's fluently so he can swear at his brothers or just being alive !
Love you Georgie. Happy Birthday, i hope you have the BEST day ever. You deserve it 🩷
