Grace's Story
Dotty Hen’s chosen charity is Team Grace, supporting the Lily Foundation. In memory of Grace, we have created a charm bracelet, featuring an etched sheep, which was very close to Grace's heart. All profits from the sale of the charm bracelets will go directly to the Lily Foundation and this will be our chosen charity when we do any fundraising through Dotty Hen.
GRACE'S STORY
Friday 23rd of March 2018 began in a normal way, little did we know it was going to turn out to be the start of a terrifying time.
At 8am my usual loud, demanding & slightly crazy daughter got very distressed and started being sick & by lunchtime she was having small seizures. We went to the Horton General Hospital & immediately Grace started baffling medical professionals. At 11pm on Saturday night, we no closer to a diagnosis & she moved to the John Radcliffe in Oxford. An MRI showed our baby girl had a stroke at just 3 years old!
On Friday the 6th April things went from bad to worse. Grace had another stroke which left her with uncontrollable seizures. She was put into an induced coma on a ventilator.
On Friday 20th April her consultants delivered the heart-breaking news that Grace had mitochondrial disease & there was nothing that could be done for her. Her mito was very advanced & she was unlikely to cope very well off the ventilator, if at all.
On Saturday 21st April, Grace's monitors were spiking & her seizures returned so we decided, with the advice of the medical professionals that it was only fair to her that we allow her to come off the ventilator. We knew she would not wake, we knew we were only going to have at most a couple of days with her, but we still spent that last bit of time willing & praying she would get better. She didn’t.
On Monday 23rd April at 13:02 Grace passed away just a month after first falling ill. Whilst we are hurting in ways I never thought possible right now & we are probably still in some form of shock, we will be eternally grateful to all of the staff at the John Radcliffe Hospital in Oxford. They fought as hard as we did for my baby girl & she received the highest level of care right to the end. We want to raise as much money as we can in memory of our beautiful girl to aid research into this disease & hopefully one day they can find some treatment or a cure.
KIRA'S INSPIRATION FOR THE BRACELET
"I was so touched when Dotty Hen approached me about making a memorial bracelet for Grace as she was a big part of my Dotty Hen Journey through the years. The sheep design for Graces bracelet really couldn’t have been more perfect, her love for sheep was as good as etched into her DNA with Stuart being a sheep shearer and pursuing a dream to make the England Shearing Team."
"We spent many hours and days checking Daddy’s sheep with him and watching him at shows which she loved every minute of. Sadly Grace was no longer here with us to enjoy the success of Stuart making the England Team for the 2019 world championships but I’m confident she had a big part to play in it."
