Helping the Woods say goodbye to Olivia!
Unfortunately we are now raising money to say goodbye to Olivia. Let’s help the family at this impossible time.
As lots of you know, I am friends with one of the smiliest, strongest, bravest and most amazing little girls in the world, Olivia Ashley Wood. She has been bringing joy to my heart on many occasions but right now is giving us all rather a lot to worry about. Following a planned open heart surgery on Thursday, Olivia was in recovery, all had been successful with the operation, she was awake and breathing for herself but then upon removal of her ventilator tube her heart stopped, she couldn’t breathe and went into cardiac arrest and needed emergency CPR. It was completely unexpected and has caused shock to everyone. Her amazing parents, Aimee and Paul witnessed this traumatic situation and I can’t even begin to imagine what that was like. The hosptial have said no parent should have seen what they saw.
Emergency teams were quick to take action and they reopened her chest and massaged her heart for 46minutes whilst getting the incredible ECMO machine ready which she is now connected to and is currently doing the heart and lung function on her behalf. She is in a critical condition and it’s now a waiting game to see if her body will be able to cope for itself after some time of rest.
I along with hundreds of people feel so very helpless right now and just don’t know what I can do. I’ve spoken to Aimee and Paul and as always they are being very practical about just taking every moment as it comes. They have been provided with accomodation through the Ronald McDonald charity housing which is helping hugely but they are now having to co ordinate travelling, eating and generally coping during this awful time. I want to help the family for whatever is most necessary right now and so I want to have a collection that they know they can use for whatever is relevant at the time! If that’s a ready meal for their room, a pint in the pub, a take away when they can’t face cooking, some toilet roll for the room, adapted clothing for Olivia etc etc I just know it will help. Aimee and Paul are quite proud people and when I spoke to them about setting this page up they were instantly very humble about the fact that they would have had running costs at home so didn’t want people to think they were funding them living it up in Birmingham! Erm, as if!!!!! If you know them you’ll know what they are like but this is real, this is crap, this is torture, this is trying to get by with unexpected costs, emotions and unthinkable turmoil. If a collection can help then at least I’ll feel I’ve done something. Aimee and Paul know I am doing this and say they will use funds for whatever helps at the time. They live in the moment of now. If this money supports them while they are in Birmingham, supports family to travel and see them, supports loss of earnings etc then it’s all useful.
Please help if you can. It’s at least something we can do being on the outside looking in.
You can see Olivia’s progress by clicking here.
With love and thanks,
Steph xxxx
