Cerys S's quilt    (Quilt Completed)

Thank you

Thank you so much, Cerys said her quilt is beautiful, encouraging, wonderful, amazing, outstanding and will be cherished. She loved the shoe on her quilt, it's like her trainers. She spotted the frog and red panda and said the lion made her think of Africa and made her smile. She did say it made her hungry for cakes and ice cream! It's made her feel really special like we all know she is, so thank you so much.

Finished photos

Individual squares

Card

Stitched by: Jodie Balaam

Biography

Cerys is the sweetest most selfless girl you will ever meet. In 2016 our lives were turned upside down when her younger brother Freddie (you made a beautiful quilt for him) was born early at 29 weeks. He became critically unwell with necrotising Enterocolitis at 2 weeks old. We had him baptised and had to bring Cerys and Noah, his brother and sister, in to say good bye to their new baby brother. This was one of the hardest things we ever had to do, was explain to them their baby was going to die. Freddie defied the odds and survived but spent 8 months in hospital. Cerys was only 8 years old and struggled with us virtually living at the hospital.

When we came home she was delighted but was understandably terrified that something may happen to Freddie, every time he was poorly particularly when he would be readmitted. I was diagnosed with PTSD as a result of the trauma and Cerys shows similar signs.

As time has gone on she has loved being a big sister and is so understanding and supportive of Freddie’s complex needs and loves helping in any way she can to make him happy. She learnt Makaton sign language to help him communicate and sing and dance with him.

Then covid hit and Freddie was considered extremely clinically vulnerable and so we began ‘shielding’. This seemed to heighten her anxiety and the longer we had to stay in it became harder for her to go out. She became very insular and wanted to just stay home with Freddie and me. She then started secondary school and found it very hard to make friends as she felt people wouldn’t like her. Her self esteem just dropped when other people made friends so easily. This then led to her not wanting to go to school and she has become more anxious. It’s now affecting her sleep as she’s worried about going to school as people are unkind to her because she ‘doesn’t fit in’.

She is the sweetest young lady and we are so proud of everything she has achieved and wish she could see how amazing she is and know how loved she is.