Sullivan’s Heroes is a charity offering support and financial assistance for families raising essential funds for vital home adaptations for a disabled child, to continue to care for their child at home, safely and with dignity.

I just wanted to thank everyone again for their donations. This wouldn't be happening without your help. 

We have come to a standstill at the moment due to quotes be much higher than anticipated when I first started this process a year ago. The £16,000 on this page and the extra we have raised elsewhere just isn't going to cut it with the current quotes we have, and prices are only looking to go up. 

I just want to share the page again to try and top up what we already have. No donation goes unseen and we truly are deeply grateful!

Eleni needs this space for her own safety and wellbeing and if i can't provide that for her then what kind of parent am I ? 

Please, even if you can't donate, share this page far and wide. 

Thankyou.

Eloise ♡

Hi, My Name is Eloise and I am the mother to our amazing Eleni.

We are looking to raise funds to go towards building an extension with adaptations. This will include a ground floor bedroom, wet room, fold down adult size changing table (£5000 alone) or if funds allow it, a height adjustable bath with water jets to massage Elenis muscles (£10,000+) and storage space for Elenis medical equipment and medications.

Our daughter, Eleni, was born on the 5th of June 2019. It was an uneventful pregnancy and the birth was a straight forward elective csection. 24 hours after bring Eleni in to the world we were sent home. Even though we thought it was a bit quick to be going home after major surgery, Eleni had all her newborn checks and passed them with flying colours so we were happy to leave.

At 3 days old we were concerned about Eleni, she was becoming floppy and feeding less. Luckily the midwife came that morning and advised we took her in as she was probably just dehydrated and blood sugars may be low due to lack of milk.

We got to Northampton general hospital and I was sat holding and trying to feed Eleni when a doctor walked past and stopped in his tracks and ran over, he took her off my lap, put her on the bed and pressed the emergency button. The next thing we know she had a mask over her mouth and is being bagged to help her breathe. Her respiratory rate was 4 breaths per minute, when a baby should be at around 30-50.

Eleni was intubated and put on a ventilator as she stopped breathing on her own, and due to this we had to be transferred to Leicester royal infirmarys childrens intensive care. Test after test doctors were struggling to find what was wrong. After Blood tests, MRI, lumbar punctures and EEGS Elenis diagnosis was clear. She had a rare metabolic disorder which was life limiting. We were advised to withdraw the life support as she just wasn’t breathing on her own and wouldn’t without the help either. So we made the tough decision to let our baby girl go. The day came and all her family was surrounding her before we took the tube out. Everyone left to sit in the family room to wait for the inevitable, but Eleni had different Ideas. The tube came out and we CRIED and SOBBED, then Neil and I looked at each other, she was breathing, it was getting stronger by the second. Everyone was gobsmacked. Despite this revelation though we were still sent to a hospice for end of life care in which we spent 4 days before taking our amazing, ferocious, fighter of a daughter home.

Eleni was diagnosed with a rare metabolic condition Non ketotic Hyperglycinemia (NKH for short) NKH affects 1 child in every 76,000 born there are approximately 15 kids in the UK and 500 worldwide living with this condition.

Sadly the mortality rate for children born with NKH is high and many die before they make it out of toddlerhood. Those that survive are often extremely disabled with uncontrollable seizures.

Currently Elenis equipment is scattered round the house with no assigned area for it all, her medication and medical supplies are stored In the downstairs toilet, we have to carry her up the stairs to bed and to bath her, and with this there is always a risk of her seizing and us losing our grip on her whilst on the stairs. Believe it or not 80% of the time she will seizure as we take her up or bring her down the stairs. Fairly soon Eleni will be too heavy and long to lift alone so will need a hoist to transfer her from room to room and from her seating to laying down.

We have applied to the council for a disabled facilities grant which will cover £30,000 of the costs. However after speaking with them, they said with inflation and building costs sky rocketing we are looking at it being more on the £45,000 Mark (and thats mostly for just the shell of the extension and architect fees), so we need to raise a minimum of £15,000 extra, and to have a disability bath, change table and hoist system we will need to raise £35,000 extra.

Since starting the process we have managed to raise £15000 off our own backs so we have approached Sullivan’s hero’s to give us a hand to raise the remaining £20,000.

And unless we can fund this off of our own backs, then the DFG can't be granted.

 Our only other options are to wait for a property that is already adapted, which would mean moving from the village we love and moving our other children (1 year old and 7 year old) to another part of the county and possibly moving schools again, leaving our support network and friends. Another option will be to find a house swap but then again we will still need to raise the extra funds OR wait for a new build property that can be adapted whilst being built. All these options take time, time that we don't know if we have with Eleni, and we want to make her life the most enjoyable and the best quality it can be, also having this extra space will open opportunities up to carers coming in and helping a VERY tired and exhausted mummy and daddy out.

 We are grateful for every single penny that is donated. I don't know what to expect from setting this up, but the only way to find out is to wait and see !

 We are emotionally drained, our heart are shredded and physically we are burning out. Having this money will mean we can have a smoother ride on this very extremely choppy ocean.