Trip to Nanny Bagshaw's

Top to Bottom - Nanny and Immie, Immie doing her own nebulizer, Drinking from a syringe, visiting Grandad Bagshaw and with Emma and Ben

Now then all,

yet again we all enjoyed another trip, this time down to south to Sunny High Wycombe. We went to see Nanny Bagshaw and family, travelling down on the friday and came back last Monday night. Despite Mummy not being on top form healthwise we still went anyway. Paul (step brother in law - if there is such thing) and myself went off on a freebie to watch Wycombe Wanderers play Boston. Whoa! Riveting stuff, but hey, free food and beer and complimentary tickets won in the local school raffle. 0-0 by the way. I'm thinking Morecambe Fc will be visiting WWFC next season. Any road, Immie had a great time playing with cousins, Emma and Ben. Thanks for looking after her during our visit last Saturday. The rest of the weekend we chilled out and did very little. When you visit Nanny Bagshaw she insists on looking after us and not allowing us to do owt. She won't even let me wash the pots. She insists on putting them in the washer. But I know she doesn't trust me as she thinks I will break them. I think I had a bad run off washing up breaking 2 items about 5 years ago. Anyway, I am not complaining.

Still no news on the gastrostomy. I think we will be trying to go to Alder Hey in Liverpool because we seem to be getting nowhere at Manchester. In another 4 weeks we will be going away again. She is a lucky lassie is Immie. Grandad and Grandma Lillington are treating us to a weekend in Silloth at a caravan park. Now Silloth is at the end of the earth plus an extra 50 miles. Think they should rename the place Sloth! Just hope there are good amusements in the park.

Stay tuned folks.

Bazzer

Hexham Holiday

Hello all,

Had a fantastic time up in Hexham in Northumberland staying at a house called "Fernstone", which is a respite home provided by "Rainbow Trust". It is provided to parents with children who have a life threatening illness or who are terminally ill. We were well looked after by a number of staff over the 5 days, they fed and watered us and even did our washing and ironing. There was an indoor swimming pool that Immie loved and a sauna for me. I'm not into swimming, roasting myself and relaxing in the sauna is more my thing. Can you chill out in a sauna?

We spent the week with another family from Sunderland. Parents Beccy and Mark were there with their 2 kiddies; Lilly and Hannah. Lilly was 4 and Hannah was slightly older than Imogen. Immie had a fab time with Lilly, who doted on her. Unfortunately, Hannah has a rare chromazone disorder and is not able to physically interact. She is a lovely little girl and was clear to see she gave mum and dad a lot of pleasure. Lilly had trouble pronouncing Imogen, she said In ja min, or something like that. So she called her "Little Tinker". In her thick Sunderland accent she would say, "L'il Tinka". She'd say, "Does the L'il Tinka wanna play in the toy room or, "Where's the L'il Tinka?" Sounded funny from a 4 year old. It was nice to see them playing well together. Beccy and Mark were on their honeymoon. I bought them a bottle of bubbly to celebrate, Mark to my amusement sank it all himself and didn't offer me a taster. Cheers mate! I'm not being serious dude.

"Rainbow Trust" is a self finacing charity and everyone involved works very hard to keep the house open. We will be sending our donation soon and will try and do some fund raising for them. A big thanks to all the staff who made us feel very welcome.

This is the second time I have typed this post. My darling wife came in and tried to help put the images in place better than how I had done it. She hit a button and all the text and pics went. I couldn't retrieve it. I'm off now to pin her down and with a continuing action of right palm against left buttock, shall replicate a beautiful sunset across Morecambe Bay. Stayed tuned for images of it here soon. Bye for now.

Posting messages on the blog

Hi,
we've had a number of people telling us they tried to send a message on the blog but found it to be a problem. If you have a problem, you can send an email in the contact section and we will put them on the blog.
Immie Dee is coughing her head off at the mo and having rubbish nights. Hope it doesn't get worse...
TTFN
Baz

Message from June and Abby

Hello guys,

Just wanted to say that you have a beautiful little girl and are telling the wonderful story of her life. Imogen looks really wicked.

I picked up your site from the link from Lauren and Avery's site. I got in touch with Lauren when Avery was born as my daughter was also born with CDH in October 2005. She too like your little one is a survivor and is doing well, luckily the only issue we have with Abigail is her weight, at 16 months she is just under 16 pounds, but apart from that she is doing ok.

Just wanted to wish you all the very best and to say how again how gorgeous Imogen is.

Good luck and lots of love

June and Abby x x x

Baz - Thanks for the kind words June and love to Abby xx

Cute pictures

This is Immie with her friend Eliza.

A little angel named Avery

Hi all,
Lindsey found a site about a little angel named Avery who was born in Canada, like Immie with CDH. Avery's mum, Lauren has started this site for the same reasons as us, to bring awareness to diaphragmatic hernia and to offer hope. Avery gave Lauren 17 happy days before being taken away, but Lauren's attitude is amazing, she is a very strong lady. We will be putting a link to her site shortly but you can visit her site at http://laurenziebart.spaces.live.com/. Also as part of the site is links and stories of CDH survivors. This is a site that Linz and I now have in our favourites and are sure to keep a regular update. God bless you Avery XX

Lauren emailed the following:

Dear Barry,

I would be so honoured if you could link Avery's site to yours. Thank you so very much for asking me. I read what Lindsey wrote in Avery's guestbook and immediately visited Imogen's site. She is such a beautiful girl and every survivor I read about fills me with hope that CDH will one day be no more. I read every single word on her site, and it filled me with so many emotions - there was so much familiarity. I wanted to comment, but was unable to find out how, and I want you to know that I am so happy that you wrote. Please feel free to link Avery's website, as my ultimate goal was to share her with the world, and raise awareness of this birth defect that I had never heard of until it touched my life. God bless Imogen and your family. May she continue to thrive.

Love Lauren

Date for Gastrostomy is a no go and holiday

Now then, got at date for the op after pestering for some time. Wouldn't you credit it, it's when we're away. We're a bit torn about cancelling the hol or postponing the op again. Unfortunately, we will opt to do the latter. We are going on a 5 day trip to Rainbow House at Hexham in Northumberland. This is a charity run retreat for parents and ill kids. Not that Immie is ill, but classed as high dependancy due to her oxy and feeding pump and they say we qualify. The people there look after parents while we look after Immie. They make your meals, washing and ironing etc. At short notice it's unlikely another couple could take our place hence our reason we are still going. Last time the hospital cancelled our appointment at the 11th hour and there's nowt to suggest they won't do it again. If anyone reads this, leave a post as we haven't had any yet apart from friends or family, (not that we aren't grateful). Be nice to know people are looking at the site. Th th th that's all folks... Baz

Bronchiolitis Jab is a nightmare

Immie went for her bronchiolitis jab today and she absolutely hated it. She has it every month throughout the winter months due to her being susceptible to picking these kind of bugs up easily. As soon as we walk into the childrens ward and sees the nurse, she knows whats coming. We take her tights off and WW3 begins.
Two nurses grab a thigh each and inject at the sime time. She shut down and went blue. It was like ... "breathe Immie, breathe" moment. She went a blue grey colour. When it was done she looked at me and I just pointed to the nurses and told her it was nowt to do with me. However, it's alot less bother than getting the virus itself, which would be serious.
No news on the date for the op yet, just that we're somewhere on the list. Hope it's soon.
She is trying tiny amounts of food when she feels like it. Banana the other day and she showed interest in a glass of red wine, but I draw the line. See ya.
Baz

Postponed Operation

Bummer! The hospital has sent us a letter to say that Immie's op is being put back. We're disappointed as we had been preparing for it and we have no date as to when it is likely to be. Hope it isn't too long.
Baz

Gastrostomy

Hi all,

Imogen will soon be going to Pendlebury hospital - 25th January - to have a gastrostomy fitted. This is due to her not eating and that the nasal tube is getting a bit of a problem. It seems to be coming up more often when she is sick The process of putting the tube up her nose and down her throat is horrible, Immie hates it.
She will be fitted with a peg straight into the stomach allowing us to hook her feed up to the peg. Hopefully then she will feel more comfortable and be encouraged to feed herself. if anyone has experience of a peg let us know. We are not worried about the peg, just a little about the op, but that's natural I suppose.
Immie is more mobile now and in bed at night when the feeding pump is attached, she easily gets it wrapped arond her neck. It's time to get rid of it.
Immie is well at the mo, a bit of a snuffle but nothing major. just means her oxy tube gets gunked with snot...yummy.
She is starting to say "da da" when asked who I am. Linz is miffed that asking her who she is she can't say "ma ma". Linz is "bu ba". Immie knows Daddy is best! Daddy's girl.
See ya,
Baz

Welcome to Immie's blog

Hello you lot, welcome to Immie's blog. We're hoping to use the blog to keep people up to date with what's happening with Immie. We will also be posting up to date piccies for you to view. Immie is such a poser and knows when the camera is out. Even when she is feeling off colour, she will always be willing to show her teeth for the camera.

Please feel free to leave questions, any comments or queeries you may have. If you have any stories to share or similar outcomes we'd love to hear from you. Even if you know of babies that went through hard times in the begining, we are happy to listen.

Immie's site is still new after taking months of writing and compiling. Special thanks to our good friend Simon Rudd who put the site together. He tell's us it was a pleasure but I bet it must have taken many hours. Thanks and God bless ya!