Iona's quilt    (Quilt Completed)

Thank you

I just want to thank you lovely ladies for Iona's quilt, it arrived today and we both had a cry, its beautiful! I've taken some pictures for you to see her with it, every member of our family here is in love with it. We could never thank you enough for making Iona happy, to see her smile the way she did when she opened the parcel was such a pleasure. Once again a big heartfelt thank you, we love you all xxx

Finished photos

Individual squares

Fabric

Donated by: Gaynor	Donated by: Julia, Chandlers Ford

Biography

Iona was born 7 wks premature and spent 2 wks in special baby care unit. She gained weight slowly at first, and it was noted she seemed to hyperflex when the doctors took blood when she was a newborn. Iona didn't sit up until she was 10 months old, we noticed her right hand always seemed to be curled inwards and her right leg and foot were never in the proper position.

After fighting with the medical staff for months, we finally got a doctor to take it seriously and she was diagnosed with cerebral palsy. We were not told that a lot of cerebral palsy sufferers also suffer with epilepsy so when she had her first seizure it was traumatic for her and us. Iona also has bowel and bladder incontinence and that in itself has been traumatic with all the treatments she has had to undergo. She had fecal impaction until the age of 6 and is still on a high dose of Movecol and Senacot.

It has been hard for Iona as far as schools have gone because she was forced into a mainstream school where I had to go and change her nappies twice a day. Only being able to use one side of her body has been hard, she uses a wheelchair as she can only walk so far. Iona is 13 now and has recently had to start taking the pill to stop her periods, she doesn't understand a lot of what happens to her but she always smiles. At the moment we live in Scotland and they have realised that Iona needed a special school so she attends Anna Ritchie in Peterhead in Scotland and she loves it. All the children there are disabled so she at last doesn't feel she's the only one. Iona is a gift to us and a very precious one at that.