Please do not send any food items to Sadie

Story Written August 2020

Sadie is a sassy 4 year old with a huge personality. Sadie has suffered with gastro problems since she was born and has spent over a third of her life in hospital. She has had around 90 admissions to hospital in her little life and over 20 general anaesthetics. All she has known is feeding tubes and monitors and, unfortunately, a lot of pain. After years of trying different feeding tubes, feeds and gut rest we are now in the middle of a very long admission to Great Ormond Street where she has now been diagnosed with a very rare condition of chronic pseudo intestinal obstruction. She is currently dependent on TPN into a central line and is awaiting an ileostomy this week.

Update 28th February 2024

Sadie has had a rough few weeks and is currently in hospital after having a new central line put in. She is now on the mend and we are hoping to be home early this week. Her PN has increased to 15 hours a day which has helped to make her feel a bit better.

Other than that she continues to be the most amazing, strong and happy child. 

Sadie loves Roblox, Lego, crafts and Barbie and at the moment anything Stitch. We are so thankful for the post that she receives and the kindness of people that go out of their way to make her smile.

Riley is now 12 and loves Pokémon, films and gaming – he finds it really hard when we are away in hospital for a while but has made himself busy by building a house for Sadie out of the balloon boxes that PostPals sent, so that will be waiting for Sadie when she gets home.

Update 17th June 2021

Sadie had a recent admission back into London for a relocation of her gastrostomy tube. This was meant to have been a relatively smooth operation but sadly Sadie ended up quite poorly afterwards and had to have 2 weeks of IV antibiotics. Currently things are ticking over OK and Sadie has been enjoying the sunshine, although the hot weather is not great for someone on TPN and we have to keep increasing her amounts. 

Thank you to everyone that sends beautiful hand written notes, cards and drawings, special thank you to Vivi who sends Riley his monthly parcels … it’s actually like you know him.

Update 2nd March 2021

Sadie is now home from hospital with her ileostomy, gastrostomy and H ickman line. She is completely dependent on her TPN but has coped so well with adapting to this new way of life. We are due to go back into hospital soon for some more surgery (so dreading that) but for now we are coping well and Sadie continues to live life to its fullest. Thank you so much to everyone that sends cards and presents to Sadie and Riley, they really do brighten their days and it has really helped to make Riley feel included, so thank you.

Story Written August 2020

Immy was diagnosed with ALL in July 2016, aged 6. She had 2 and 1/2 years of treatment, but relapsed six months later in July 2019.  She has spend the majority of time since then in hospital. She had chemo and immunotherapy treatments transfused 24hrs a day for 28 day cycles, between July and November in Addenbrookes. Then she spent 100 days in complete isolation in Bristol (500 mile round trip from home) having a Bone Marrow transplant.

We came home in March, straight into lockdown! Immy was recovering slowly, then in June she developed a rare, serious post transplant complication affecting her kidneys, so we are currently still going to Addenbrookes twice a week. We are having to shield until January so this will be our second Xmas without seeing family. No school for siblings either, so cabin fever is setting in. This is day 240 of isolation and no hugs from family for us!!

Imogen has a twin sister Charlotte (10) who was going to be her donor, but it turns out they are identical (a huge suprise) so she was not a viable option and her sister has a greater risk of developing too. Imogen has a brother Liam (11) who was diagnosed with Arthritis five years ago, in multiple joints including his eye. He has had a cataract removed and is having further laser surgery in Oct. He has frequent hospital visits, has high anxiety about his meds and is very needle phobic! 

Thank goodness Immy is a real trouper, she is unbelievably co-operative with all her pokes and procedures, much to our relief, so grateful for that! She is just amazing, and such an upbeat, comedic character, a real inspiration.

Update 23rd March 2021

We feel like the time has come for Imogen, Charlotte and Liam to say goodbye to Postpals. Immy has been able to return to school and although she has found it hard, shattering and has been incredibly shy, it will just take some time to get used to being social again. Postpals is such a wonderful charity and we have met so many wonderful people through it. We would like to thank everybody so much for all their kind words and support over the months we have been a part of it.Thanks in particular to our monthly sender’s Lizzie, Julie and Geraldine. We wish all the pals and their families all the best.

Update 6th February 2021

Immy had her one year post transplant anniversary 29th November. A couple of hospital stays that month and horrible shingles for the occassion, but luckily we managed to celebrate it at home, with lots of lovely supportive post. (Thank you everyone!)
We are delighted to say that throughout December, although there were a few trips to Addenbrookes, we did not have to visit our local hospital at all, for neither Immy nor brother Liam – this has not happened for six years!!!
Immy is 14 months post transplant now, and getting stronger, but the road to recovery has been long and slow. We still haven’t had a single visitor in our house since July 2019 as she has been shielding while her immune system recovers.
The good news is that at the end of January ’21 Immy finished the treatment for her complication from last May/June. Treatment did a marvellous job in suppressing the part of her immune system that was attacking itself… now just waiting for it to build back up over the coming months as part of it  is still at rock bottom. 
We have just had 11 days in hospital over the last couple of weeks with temperatures and a few virus’ on board, so she is still classified as extremely vulnerable, but roll on summer and covid vaccines!! 
Immy is now starting to have all her childhood vaccinations redone for the third and hopefully final time. Not an easy task anymore as Immy has totally had enough of co-operating! (Can’t say I blame her!)

Story written July 2020

My daughter Nimrit was born on the 29th December 2013 and was diagnosed with MEN2B in october 2017, but has struggled with the symptoms all her life. I am a single parent but I am not alone, I am so blessed to have such a wonderfully supportive family and friends who have been by our side.

At 6 months my daughter started to get urinary tract infections, she didn’t respond to oral antibiotics as her infections were always ESBL ECOLI. When I mentioned to the doctor at 1 years old that she didn’t open her bowels for 5 days, I was told it was fine and that it was normal.  The days between a dirty nappy got longer and longer, from 5 days to 7 and then 11 days. UTIs were occurring regularly and trying to capture wee samples from a baby was so stressful.

Going into hospital also became a regular thing and it wasn’t long before my daughter would realise where we were going in the car and she would cry and beg for me not to take her. We would spend weeks on end on the children’s ward at Whipps Cross Hospital in East London. Nimrit was on 8 sachets of Movicol and other liquid syrup medication too and getting that into a 2 year old was not easy, so she had an NG tube fitted.

The amount of medication would often make her feel sick and the NG would often end up coming out, which only meant one thing, another visit to the hospital to be held down for the tube to be inserted again. It was a never ending cycle of UTIs, cannulation, hospital, antibiotics, medication, NG coming out, back in hospital….

Things then got much worse when I had to take her in for manual clean outs, under anesthesia. I think this was one of the hardest times for me, seeing my daughter laying motionless, not reaching for my face to touch for comfort or calling my name. After numerous clean outs they took a biopsy and they also fitted a permanent peg in her stomach. I was told the results of the biopsy were clear. Then 2 months later I took her to A&E because it had been 16 days since she had opened her bowels, which is when they looked at the biopsy results again and was told it was abnormal and showed Neuronal intestinal dysplasia (NID).

She was going to have an ileostomy bag fitted after her consultant returned from a European conference. He happened to discuss her case with a professor and he advised that as her results showed NID, they should test her for a few other things. She had the tests that were suggested and 8 weeks later in early September 2017 she was diagnosed with Men2B. She had her thyroidectomy at GOSH on the 6th Nov and is now back and forth to the hospital checking the calcitonin levels.

She has never had tears since birth and I thought this was unrelated.  She had 2 surgeries to unblock her tear ducts which were unsuccessful. The next surgery would be to break a bone in her nose and do a complex surgery, which would have left a scar on her face; with all the other problems she was having with being constipated, I decided against the surgery, and I am glad I was guided this way, because it turned out this was not unrealated, but a symptom MEN2B. Nimrit also has unrelated Talipes (Club Foot).

With all that has happened to her, she is very traumatised but still going strong.  My daughter is very aware of everything and earwigs into every conversation I might be having about her to someone. So now every time my phone rings, she says, ‘Mum who is it??? What they say??’. I know at the back of her head she wonders whether it’s the doctor calling.

From a very young age she started understanding things, my phone would ring and I would be told that based on her urine sample, she has a UTI and that she would have to go on IV antibiotics, so that meant a trip to the hospital, I would have to lie to get her out of the house. The worst thing was that I knew Nimrit was very hard to cannulate and that would mean she would be poked many times with a needle.  It would break my heart have to be the one helping the doctors to hold her.

Her consultant, the play specialists and surgeons are all great and very supportive and I find comfort in their continued support. When Nimrit plays alone she talks a lot about what she has heard, big words like my doll is constipated and had a biopsy, hearing her say this is very upsetting.

She is very cautious around people, even close family members, it has taken years for her to get close with my siblings, even then she very rarely leaves my side but over time has become comfortable with family now but at times Nimrits anxiety can be bad. Nimrit has good days and bad days. We take each day as it comes.

Update 30th December 2023

To my Post Pals family… Firstly, apologies for the lateness in thanking you all for being here throughout, sending love, cards and gifts throughout the year and for the Diwali, Halloween, Christmas and Nimrit’s birthday post. We have had a rough journey this year and it has got harder. It will always be hard and heart breaking but having your prayers and blessings helps immensely. 

Thank you from the bottom of my heart. 

Update 25th March 2022

It’s been a difficult year in and out of hospital which is still ongoing unfortunately. Thanks to Post Pals, its kept Nimrit going, as she loves opening all her post which brings her happiness with lots of smiles. She loves it when young children also write to her and also loves all her gifts that are sent to her. Nimrit has also enjoyed her Costa giftcards from Post Pals as she loves a Costa Treat.

Update 26th March 2021

Nimrit has another mass in mouth that we are waiting on surgeons to arrange a date on moving. She will have to stop treatment before it’s done as it causes more bleeding and longer healing time.  Nimrit is also having sudden headaches and sweats so we have had some tests done to check her adrenal glands. She is also still feeling very tired all the time. Please could we remove that she like arts and crafts as she has a lot of craft stuff at the moment please. We would like to thank everyone who has posted to Nimrit and made her smile.

Update 2nd September 2020

Nimrit is having a pre opp assessment on 4th sept and me and her will need to get our covid test done. I know she will hate it as she hates swabs being done, so I am dreading it. All being well on the 7th she will have 2 surgeries done, her masses (tumors) removed from mouth and her throat procedure and airways checked. It’s all come at once but on the 17th we will meet her oncologist to discuss treatment and find out more about it. Nimrit has told her siblings (cousins who mean the world to her) about PostPals. Unfortunately she won’t be going back to school due to the surgeries.Please keep her in your prayers God bless and thanks so much to you all.