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UPDATE 22/08/16 - Due to the overwhelming support that we have had (thanks very much), plus the recent local and national media attention, I'm going to raise the target up yet again!

The story of Willow Rose

On Monday 20th April 2015, Willow Rose was born by C section in Gloucester Hospital. Unfortunately, her heartrate had dropped just before the operation began and when she was delivered, it had stopped completely. After 8 minutes of resuscitation, her heartrate was detected and fully established after 11 minutes.  Any length of time that the brain is starved of oxygen can lead to brain injury and if treatment isn’t given straight away, this can increase significantly.

Within one hour of Willow being born, a specialist team from Bristol arrived to start a revolutionary treatment called ‘Cooling Therapy’. This treatment ‘cools’ the baby from the normal body temperature of 37 degrees down to 33.5 degrees.  This has been proven to reduce the risk of later disability and stops further brain damage.

Willow spent just under two weeks in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU) at St Michael’s Hospital in Bristol.

She was cooled for 72 hours, then slowly warmed back up to normal body temperature. During this time, no one could say if Willow was brain damaged or exactly how this could affect her further development.

This was, without question, the most traumatic experience of our lives. It was, however, made so much easier by knowing such a great team were caring for Willow and also by being helped by the Cots for Tots Charity which enabled us to stay in their house just across the road from the hospital.

Willow Rose has just reached her 1st birthday. She is so far, not showing any signs of development problems.  She is perfect; our amazing little girl!

We would very much like to raise some money for the Cots for Tots appeal who helped us so much with the accommodation they provided and also we would like to contribute to the funding of the NICU ward.

Launching from a 70m cliff, Bex  will be riding down one of the UK’s longest zip slides above an 80m deep flooded quarry near Chepstow.

That sounds like fun doesn’t it? Not when you’re scared of heights. The screams will be heard for miles and miles! This will be happening on 14th August 2016 at 11:30

Thanks very much for your help.

Martin, Bex and Willow Rose

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