Home Away From Home

Hi, my name is Megan and I am raising money for the charity that helped save my daughters life.

Just after the twins first birthday we received the worst news we could possibly have expected and that was that our littlest baby was in heart failure and needed to have open-heart surgery as soon as possible as she had an Atrial Septal Defect/ASD (which is a big hole in her heart and because of this, it increases the amount of blood that goes into her lungs) and a Patent Ductus Arteriosus/PDA (which affects the way the blood flows through her lungs). This meant that Imogen’s blood wasn’t being pumped around her body as normal, she had a lot of blood going into her lungs which made it difficult for her to breathe as essentially, she didn’t have much room for air as her lungs were constantly filled with a lot of blood. Her heart was working super hard to help her body do basic things such as breathe that she would sometimes have to choose between eating and breathing and because of this she was sick during/after meals, and her body didn’t have the extra energy to store weight, so she was massively underweight.

Imogen had open-heart surgery at 14 months old weighing only 12lbs and it was singlehandedly the worst time we have ever been through as a family. The operation was 5 hours long in total and after this Imogen was sedated for a further 24 hours. Seeing our baby go through this was horrendous.

However, within 6 days she was at home and like a totally new baby, she was crawling around as normal, talking so much, gaining weight and eating everything (with hardly any throw ups!) and since the operation she has had a permanent smile on her face. Now at 21 months old, Imogen is the most gorgeous, kindhearted, clever little girl who loves to play with her sister and all of her toys and it is all thanks to that life changing surgery that she had at the Freeman Hospital in Newcastle.

In addition to this… I am wanting to get the ball rolling with raising money for Scot’s house (The Sick Children’s Trust). Without Scot’s house, we would have been travelling to Newcastle from Middlesborough with a 1-year-old on a daily basis. We would have also had to leave Imogen alone in hospital at the most vulnerable time of her life. As a mother I couldn’t even comprehend this. Instead of that, the 3 of us got to stay in an apartment together which was fully facilitated on the hospital grounds and be as close to Imogen as possible. Having the opportunity to eat, get showered, changed and also care for Imogen’s sister Annabelle properly and keep up with her routine during the hospital stay was detrimental to all of our mental health.

Therefore, I am running the Great North Run in September 2023 to raise money for this fantastic, life changing charity. Please donate what you can, every penny counts and will contribute to families with sick children and keep them together during awful times! Thank you to everyone who donates, you’re really making a difference!