A young girl from Stourbridge, who spent last Christmas in Birmingham Children’s Hospital after being blue-lighted there for emergency surgery on Christmas Eve, is throwing her support behind hospital’s 2024 Christmas Appeal, after her own experience there.
Birmingham Children’s Hospital Charity is on a mission to make Christmas as magical as possible for its sick kids. It’s not easy being in hospital during this time, but with the help of donations from the generous public, the charity can make sure that there’s plenty of festive cheer, whether that’s transforming the wards into a winter wonderland with decorations or giving patients a chance to visit to the hospital’s grotto to meet Santa and pick up a present.
Seven-year-old Amelia Talbot and her family know the importance of the extra touches which make Christmas so special at Birmingham Children’s Hospital, after spending Christmas and New Year’s there last year.
Amelia fell ill in December last year, with an ear infection in both ears. The antibiotics she had been prescribed hadn’t helped and she had started complaining of severe headaches, as well as becoming more and more lethargic as the days went on. Her parents, Zara and Daniel, took her to her local hospital where she was checked over and sent home, but with instructions to return if her symptoms got any worse. When her parents noticed that her right eye had started to turn inwards, they rushed her back in.
A scan showed she had a severe blood clot on her right venous sinus, which is one of the major drainage pathways in the brain, so the family were blue lighted to Birmingham Children’s Hospital at 1am on Christmas Eve. Amelia was first on the list of patients to be taken to surgery in the morning. Her surgeon performed a mastoidectomy, drilling behind her ear to clean out the clot and infection and reduce the swelling on her brain, followed by a lumbar puncture to collect some spinal fluid.
Zara, Amelia’s mum, comments: “Amelia’s surgeon said she’s never seen a case like hers in 30 years, so we know just how lucky we are for the problem to have been spotted and for her to have had emergency surgery to fix it. We’ll be forever grateful. However, the whole ordeal was so scary and a complete whirlwind for us. We hadn’t had time to catch our breath, let alone think about being in the hospital over Christmas, we were just so focused on Amelia.”
Thankfully, on Christmas morning the next day, Amelia still woke up to a sack full of presents paid for by donations to Birmingham Children’s Hospital Charity and the family were treated to a Christmas dinner on the ward. Amelia ended up spending three weeks in hospital and during that time there were lots of fun activities to help make her stay fun, from arts and crafts on the wards, to a New Year’s Eve party for patients.
A year on, and Amelia is doing so much better now. She’s still under the care of the hospital, but is back to her normal, quick-witted self, enjoying reading and playing with her pet rabbit, Peanut.
Zara reflects: “This wasn’t the Christmas we envisaged, but we were so thankful to everyone at the hospital and charity for helping to make it special for us. I’d urge others to donate to the hospital if they can, to support the kids spending Christmas there.”
Annie Eytle, Head of Public Fundraising at Birmingham Children’s Hospital Charity, said: “Being in hospital with your child over Christmas is the stuff of nightmares, but for Amelia’s family it was a nightmare come true. While we can’t always ease the worry for families staying with us, with the help of the public, donations to our charity help to ensure all our children get to experience some of the magic of the festive season, so they don’t miss out.”
If you would like to donate to Birmingham Children’s Hospital Charity’s 2024 Christmas Appeal, please visit bch.org.uk/Christmas.