My name is Sean and this is my daughter Darcie when she was born, she was cared for at Glasgow’s Yorkhill Hospital who i am fundraising for. At the hospital they have a traffic light system in place, red, no operation, amber they monitor and make a decision and green means operate, Darcie was deemed stable enough to be monitored for a couple of days then a decision was made to operate at 3 days old as all her vitals were coming back as good. Before they operated we got told the outcome would be 50/50 chance of survival but when the surgery started she went down to 20/80. Darcie has a condition called CDH (Congenital Diaphragm Hernia) where the diaphragm doesn’t develop properly and all the organs move up into the chest, a deadly condition with no guarantees of survival. Going by Darcie’s vitals there was expected to be no issues and a straight forward operation. When they started the operation the surgeon had never seen the condition as bad, absolutely no diaphragm. darcie newborn only 9 inches long and had to make a diaphragm out of gortex patch stitching it to her rib cage and heart muscles. As well as the CDH she has one lung and several problems with her heart, we where thinking no chance!! To be honest this was so hard my wife had pre-eclampsia and nearly died, a sick child that we have planned for was going through all this and fighting for her life. We stay 100 miles away from the hospital and were understandably scared but the care this hospital provided not only to our daughter but us too at one of the most traumatic times of my life can never be appreciated enough and nothing could ever thank them enough. They helped us stay close to Darcie by getting us in to Ronald McDonald House where we lived for 6 months. Without a doubt the hardest 6 months of our life, watching our girl get slowly better and others sadly not is a bitter sweet situation..The last 9 years have been an uphill battle for Darcie with regular appointments at Glasgow Children’s Hospital to monitor how she is doing, how the patch is holding up, how the heart is coping and when to expect open heart surgery, the hospital staff go above and beyond on every single visit. Fortunately for Darcie after another MRI the hospital is happy to monitor her and are hopeful no surgery will be done within the next couple of years. This news has pushed me on to decided that this is the time to try and give back in the only way i can think possible, by raising funds so the hospital can continue to do what they excel at..helping the most vulnerable and sick children from not just all over Scotland but all over Britain and Europe. Although we stay in the Scottish Borders, Glasgow Children’s Hospital had the best resources and surgeons to give my daughter the best fighting chance she deserved.

Myself and some friends are hoping to raise some money by doing the 3 peak challenge. The challenge is to climb the 3 highest mountains in Britain within 24 hours on Saturday 1st of June 2019. Scotland’s Ben Nevis 4409ft, England’s Scafell Pike 3209ft and Snowden in Wales 3560ft. Doing this extremely tough challenge are Barry Simpson, Jamie Revels, Cameron Rice, Chris McCabe, James Mains, Alan Morrison, Stuart Thornton, Lee Sinclair, Craig Bonnington and Gordon Grant. All the guys also have sponsor forms and are doing their bit to raise funds for the hospital aswel as the challenge, absolute legends!! big shout out to Cooks Van Hire in newtown st.boswell’s who have donated a minibus to allow the challenge to go ahead.

Please could you donate, however small, to help us help the hospital to continue to do what they best, saving the life of all our precious children, grandchildren, nieces, nephews. Whatever money is sponsored or donated will be calculated after the challenge and given to the hospital by Darcie (hopefully as she is very shy) Many many thanks for reading just a little bit about why this is so close to my heart and even if you can’t donate give a little thought to the guys on the 1st and wish them well.

Thanks for taking the time to read this it’s very much appreciated.

Sean and Darcie x            https://www.justgiving.com/crowdfunding/sean-fraser-3