Support for Lola and her parents

As many of you already know, Lola, our much-loved granddaughter and niece, is currently in Birmingham Children’s Hospital undergoing life-saving treatment for her heart. Ella and Rob, her amazing parents, have been by her side the whole time while they have been going through the most painful and terrible few weeks. 17-month-old Lola was admitted into hospital only 2 weeks ago after she caught a common cold virus, but unfortunately, this has attacked her heart and has now rapidly deteriorated into a severe heart failure condition called Dilated Cardiomyopathy. She has been receiving the best possible care in the Paediatric ICU and the doctors and nurses are doing an amazing job - she is now on an ECLS/ECMO machine which acts as her heart and lungs so that she can rest and try to heal, however, the care team have said that there is a long road ahead of them, and it is likely that Lola will require a heart transplant. This means that Lola, Ella and Rob will be situated in London at Great Ormond Street Hospital, far away from their home in Stone, Staffordshire for many months to come. So many of you have expressed your support and best wishes for Lola and all her family - Ella and Rob are so grateful for all the messages of love that they have received. A lot of people have also asked if there is any other way that they can help, which is why we have started this fundraiser. Although there is still a lot of uncertainty at the moment, we want to make sure that Ella and Rob don’t have to worry about any financial hardship they may have due to the additional costs of caring for a child in hospital on a long-term basis. We want to be able to support them with costs for fuel, travel, parking, city accommodation and any other necessities they need over the following months. They need to be able to concentrate on their daughter without worrying about finding these funds. All donated money will go directly to Ella and Rob, and they have also decided that any unused funds will be donated to both the Birmingham Children’s Hospital and Great Ormond Street Charities so these amazing doctors and nurses can continue to provide the care that has been so vital to Lola so far. If you can afford to donate, any amount of money, no matter how small, is very gratefully received and will ease the burden of the emotional stress caused by the horrific situation they find themselves in. We thank you from the bottom of our hearts - from both Ella's and Rob's families x