Our WhatsApp group has provided immense support from day one of the Covid-19 pandemic. We set it up to plan weekly Zoom calls where we shared sensory stories and had a good ol chat. It soon turned into a daily chat about anything and everything…. all the nitty-gritty details are shared and support is just given from them all. I can say ANYTHING and guarantee one of the ladies has been in my situation.

It's midnight in Turkey and my daughter's feeding tube has come clean out! The tube is laying on the wheelchair as I'm tucking her into bed… The stoma site is now open and leaking, my daughter is screaming in sheer panic, my family with us have no idea what is happening and I'm trying to keep my cool whilst internally I'm about to combust. You see, Ava is fed via a special feeding tube that bypasses her stomach and sits in a small part of her intestine, called the Jejunum. This tube gets specially placed in the hospital under x-ray. It’s not something I can replace out of hospital, let alone out of the country> and the whole thing has come out on day 2 of our 10 day break in Turkey!!

Panic absolutely sets in whilst I frantically message the group to say HELP ME NOW. I mean, I didn’t need to quite panic them like that but they responded within seconds! I tell them what's happened, send photos of this tube sitting on her wheelchair and I just say…. What on earth do I do?! I haven't replaced a tube before!!!

They talk me through it, they calm me down and guide me with putting a new tube in. Step by step they ensure I've done the job correctly. We were all up until 1am chatting and making sure we were all okay. Of course the chat ends with some laughs, it always does. 1am and these ladies stayed up with me, in a different country just calming me down and making sure we avoid a hospital trip. I honestly don't know what I would have done without them on that day.

I could go on and on about how this little group has helped, but there's not much information that I can share! All I’ll say is, I am SO grateful to Little Miracles for enabling me to meet such amazing, like-minded families. You have no idea how much that means.

Thank you"

Lauren, Mum to Ava, Elouise and Theo x