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This will be my third time running the London Marathon, and my third time for GOSHCC.  It's a charity I'm really passionate about.  Here's why:

 

July 7th 2005 – it’s a date many London residents & workers will remember for the most recent terrorist attacks.

 

 For my family, it represents a much more personal struggle.  At the time, my office was just a few minutes’ walk away from the site of one of the bombs.  However, I wasn’t at my office that day.  I was at Addenbrooke's hospital in Cambridge, learning that my unborn son (we didn’t know he was a boy at that time) had a serious heart condition.  In fact, it was life-threatening.  At best, he would need surgery right after his birth, perhaps even in whilst still in the womb (I didn’t know that was possible!); at worst, he might not survive.  Then there was the possibility that he could be born with a serious related condition, like Downs Syndrome.

 

We prepared ourselves for the worst, then headed home almost oblivious to the outside world and the terrible events that had unfolded.

 

Our son was born on 23rd November 2005.  He was extremely poorly.  No serious related conditions other than several holes in his heart.  The combined effect of the holes (the largest of which, when diagnosed, was 3mm wide and his heart was only 10mm wide), meant that he couldn’t feed properly, as he had trouble breathing – his lungs were so saturated with blood due to the holes that he was constantly gasping for air.  He needed medication for that saturation, and had to be fed on special milk to help him grow via a tube going up his nose, down his throat and into his stomach.

 

Rohin (meaning “rising up”) was a fighter – he hated the tube and pulled it out at least once a day and again at night.  He barely slept and was uncomfortable all of the time.  He endured 5 weeks of this until he became large enough for surgery.  At this point, we took him to the most amazing place – Great Ormond Street Hospital.

 

We had been here before.  Not just with Rohin, whose condition was confirmed in a scan at this hospital, but also with Rishi, his older brother.  Rishi had also been born with some holes in his heart, and we endured the same agonising pregnancy with him, but luckily his condition was not as severe and did not require surgery.

 

So, here we were again: optimistic, but scared.  We were going through the motions – it was just after Christmas 2005 and we’d had a quiet celebration at home, just the four of us.  We were faced with the real prospect of entering the New Year as a family of three instead of four.  The immediate surgery Rohin required was a P.A. (pulmonary artery) Banding – essentially, putting a band around the artery between his heart & lungs to prevent saturation, allowing him to grow enough to be big enough & strong enough for the fix – further surgery in a few months.  Doesn’t sound too complicated or worrying when you say it quickly!

 

Watching him in lying in that bed, tubes & wires everywhere, still fighting & fidgeting, was harrowing.  What, we wondered, would happen next?  How strong would he be?  Would he even be the same person?

 

He recovered well – stronger, healthier and with a slightly better growth rate.

 

Rohin was 18 months old when his second operation was performed.  Again at GOSH, again it involved cutting his chest open and operating on his heart.  This time, it was to patch up a couple of the more severe holes.

 

By this time, Rohin’s personality was immeasurably larger than his tiny frame.  If you’ve met him, you’ll know what I mean.  If losing him at 5 weeks was unthinkable, losing him at this point would have been devastating, and thankfully we never found out how devastating.  There were worrying moments – again we had a long and agonising half-day in theatre, again we fretted over his recovery in intensive care.  He was uncharacteristically emotionless and silent for 24 hours afterwards - another cause for concern.

 

Today, Rohin is the most full-of-life, active, uplifting, annoying, frustrating, stubborn, happy, crazy little character you will ever meet, and it’s mainly because of the skill, dedication and general excellence of GOSH that he’s still with us.

 

That's why I'm running, and hopefully after reading this you'll put your hands in your pockets & help GOSH to help those hundreds of children every day who, just like Rohin did, need their lives saving.