POPPY'S STORY

On the 14th of November 2021 Poppy Lou went in for a relatively simple routine operation to have an ileostomy. We were told this would improve her quality of life and have less long term traumatic impact on her mentally than her current wash out regime. She had her surgery on the 15th and seemed to recover well however, 3 weeks later the stoma was still not working and she was becoming more unwell. She was taken back to surgery again to review and alter the stoma on the 9th December and this time she ended up with a bowel perforation, and an infection which made all of her wounds reopen, including the one holding her stoma. She continued to become mal nourished because at this stage she had not eaten for weeks and was not yet on TPN (which are the feeds that go straight into her blood stream allowing her body to be nourished and recover)

Her condition continued to deteriorate and she was left home just after Christmas. Within a few weeks we had brought her back to hospital severely mal nourished, belly swollen and vomiting. We'll spare some of the details at this point but this led to a very traumatic event where she was ultimately rushed to emergency surgery and ended up loosing a large portion of her bowel and came back with 2 stomas side by side. She had a lot of tubes etc and needed several blood transfusions, iron infusions etc. She eventually began to recover and move about and 3 weeks later her stoma prolapsed, which is where the intestine basically falls out of her body inside out.

This was operated on and stitched. Which prolapsed again within a week. She ended up having the whole operation done all over again and the stoma was revised in May 2022. So at this stage her intestines had been operated on in November, December, February, April and May (not including minor surgeries in between where she had her long lines, picc lines and ultimately her Hickman line put in to nourish her.) From February to May, Poppy's Dad was trained to do her sterile procedures needed, to allow her to come home so we could continue to care for her and try to get some semblance of a life back for our family. We got home just in time for Jacobs Communion Day.

Even though her operation looked like it had gone well, she prolapsed again 3 weeks after. Over the next few months we tried our best to find her answers. We found an expert surgeon in the U.K. in Great Ormond Street Hospital, who has experience in children with rare bowel and dysmotility issues and who have had surgeries that have gone wrong. However, we had to go to this surgeon privately initially in order to try get Poppys case reviewed. We have come up against several road blocks whilst trying to find answers and we were finally referred from Crumlin in September.

However at the beginning on November Poppy became very unwell. We assumed she had gotten a virus or bug, but we brought her to hospital to rule out anything else. Unfortunately, it was a twisted bowel and her intestines had become strangulated very high up. She ended up having another emergency surgery where this particular surgeon managed to save her intestines as she was minutes from losing her entire bowel and in turn he saved our little girls life.

We lived for a few weeks in secret hope and prayed that this was the answer to all of her issues. However, last week she began to prolapse again. We now are awaiting our appointment in Great Ormond Street and need to keep her well enough in the mean time to be able to get her there, in order to find the answers and a solution for our little girl.

Poppy Lou is an amazing, vibrant, chatty, crazy funny, character and a beautiful little soul who does not deserve this to be her story. She has gone through so much in her tiny life so far and while she's the strongest person I know, she shouldn't have to be. She deserves to be able to move on from the trauma she has been through and find answers that could solve the damage that she has endured. She deserves the quality of life she was initially promised and this is why we are raising these vital funds.

Thank you so much for supporting our mission, to get Poppy the expert care she needs and deserves. We are eternally grateful to each and everyone of you who have bought bracelets, sent donations, well wishes, shared our story, shared your own posts, talked about this with friends, organised fundraising events or even said prayers. Everything Helps and we are so Thankful to have such an amazing community of support behind us. 

Lots of Love, Mammy, Daddy, Jacob, Poppy Lou and of course her bestie Chilli the dog. From our Family to yours Thank you!

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