Give to GOSH: 'All I want is to be able to give my son something to eat'

One the mend: Rowan Pethard
Joe Plimmer
Jamie Merrill31 December 2015

As many of us look ahead to what 2016 will bring, the families of three Great Ormond Street Hospital patients tell of their hopes for the New Year.

Monro Simmonds-Walkes, Essex

For 15-month-old Monro, Christmas meant a visit to Great Ormond Street for an electro-encephalogram to monitor electrical activity in his brain for epilepsy.

He was born at 27 weeks and has been in and out of GOSH ever since. His mother, Savannah Simmonds, said: “Monro was born with a hole in his stomach which had to be reversed. He has sleep apnoea and they think he might have epilepsy.”

Monro has been in and out of GOSH since he was born 15 months ago
Great Ormond Street Hospital

Eating is a challenge for Monro and his family hopes he will be able to start eating properly in 2016. “Getting the appointment at GOSH means the world to me, I’m so glad he is being treated here. They’re dealing with his sleep apnoea, throat and epilepsy; they’re looking at everything. For next year all I want is to get some results, be able to give him something to eat and see him get better.”

Rowan Pethard, Hemel Hempstead

Football fan: Rowan's family hope he will soon be well enough to play again
Joe Plimmer

The worst of Rowan’s treatment for leukaemia is over. After months of intensive therapy the seven-year-old football-mad boy is home with his family in Hertfordshire.

The future is more positive than this time last year for his mother Abby, though her son still faces up to two years of follow-up treatment to ensure that he is totally free of the disease.

The family hopes that Rowan, who supports Spurs, will soon be well enough to play football again and that the family will be able to go away on holiday.

She said: “I really hope we can get away and enjoy time together as a family, just the four of us. I want to see Rowan doing all the things he hasn’t been able to and enjoy getting back to normal.”

Maddison Webb, Basildon

After nearly four years of treatment for lymphocyte T-cell leukaemia Maddison Webb, five, just wants to go back to school to see her friends.

Give to GOSH: Where your money will go

  • Funding the Louis Dundas Centre for Children’s Palliative Care, for patients who have life-limiting or life-threatening conditions
  • Supporting the creation of a new specialist unit helping children with heart failure to stay well while they wait for a heart transplant
  • Funding research programmes, which aim to find new cures and treatments for children with rare diseases
  • Funding the patient and family support programme at the hospital, including a dedicated play team which designs activities for children to aid their treatment, recovery and understanding of their illness. It also funds a wide range of other support, all helping to make life as “normal” as possible for families while children are in hospital, often for weeks or months at a time

She was first diagnosed and treated in January 2012 but relapsed 18 months later and is now an inpatient at GOSH, where she is waiting to see if she is ready for a bone-marrow transplant. Her mother, Stephanie, said: “We hope she will be going for a transplant in January. No one in the family was a match but they have found someone on the register, so we are very grateful.”

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