Liam S's quilt    (Quilt Completed)

Thank you

Oh my goodness we couldn't have been any happier with the beautiful quilt your talented stitchers made for Liam! He absolutely loves it and it will be a family heirloom for generations to come. Thank you all so much. I'm a little emotional xxx

Finished photos

Individual squares

Card

Stitched by: Donna Sharpe

Biography

Liam was born by planned cesarean section in 2017. There were no signs before birth that he had anything wrong with him and he was born a healthy 8lbs 13oz. The only sign that there was anything wrong came in the first few days of life when he kept dropping weight despite being a good eater.

He was diagnosed at 15 days old by the heel prick test. We received a call from a cystic fibrosis consultant at the local hospital who broke the news over the telephone before immediately inviting us to attend an appointment. To say we were shocked was an understatement. Although this is a genetic condition, there is no recent history of it on either side of the family.

Since that day we started a daily routine of physiotherapy and medication. Liam is pancreatic insufficient which means he does not absorb fat easily from food. We have to calculate the dosage of and administer an enzyme called Creon to him before he eats anything with fat in it. We are nearly always on some sort of antibiotics and we take nebulised medicine every evening to thin the mucus in his lungs. We must also ensure that he has an increased salt uptake.

Since birth Liam has had two hospital admissions of 14 days each for intravenous antibiotics. This is actually not that many in comparison to some others.

We very much try not to let cystic fibrosis define Liam and try to allow him as normal a life as possible. We even travelled to Vietnam last summer on our family holiday with his older brother Noah. Liam is a real little fighter and we couldn't be more proud of him.