Immie is the most incredible and loving little girl. As you can see from photos, she has the biggest smile, which is infectious to everyone she meets.

She was born two weeks into the first Covid lockdown on 19^th April 2020. Immie’s mother, Megan, expressed concerns at 3 and 10 days old over the phone to the health visitor that Immie’s right hand was in a fist was tight shut.

The family were passed back and forth between health visitor and GP for a year, not being able to see either one before Megan refused to leave the GP until Immie was examined.

Immie was immediately referred to Ipswich hospital and seen the same week. Cerebral palsy was suspected, but the MRI scan that was conducted showed that Immie had a brain condition called polymicrogyria, meaning the left side of her brain is smaller than the other half and the folds aren’t as they should be.

The condition is linked with epilepsy, autism and learning difficulties amongst others. The family moved back to Newcastle in November 2021 to provide a stable location for Immie’s medical care and education and to be near family for support, as well as the Great North Children’s Hospital.

In December, Immie had her first seizure, and her second a few weeks later, both resulting in hospital stays and a diagnosis of epilepsy.

In June 2022, Immie had a severe tonic-clinic seizure which the doctors were unable to stop. After five different medications and four hours of being in the seizure, the decision was made to put her into an induced coma, put on a ventilator and transferred to the Paediatric Intensive Care Unit (PICU). The medical staff suspected that Immie had meningitis which brought on the seizure and so Immie was taken for a MRI before a lumber puncture which would extract fluid from her spine to check for the infection. The lumber puncture found a pneumococcal infection from the meningitis family, needing 10 days of IV antibiotics however the MRI found an unrelated brain tumour.

This shattered the hearts of everyone who knew Immie. After the course of antibiotics was finished, Immie had emergency surgery to remove the tumour which was found to be an Atypical Grade 2 Meningioma, rarely found in children.

After surgery, the MRI to check the tumour was fully removed found another potential tumour. She recovered incredibly well, woke up in PICU singing ‘Wind The Bobbin Up’ and -to her oncology nurse’s horror- was wanting to be immediately back on her scuttle bug!

Immie had an MRI 3 months later, in October 2022, to check the growth of the tumours. It found that the tumour removed had begun to grow back, however the potential other site was stable.

In January 2023, another MRI found that what was previously thought was tumour re-growth was an unknown combination of re-growth, inflammation and scar tissue. Immie and her family are currently awaiting the next MRI, due in May 2023, to see how the potential tumours have changed.

 

Immie’s life involves an average of 2.3 seizures a week, 3.6 hospital appointments a month, 7 medications a day and she has spent 21 nights in hospital over the last year.

But it also involves a lot of smiles, two wonderful parents, supportive family who utterly adore her and fun days out with friends. Despite all she has dealt with and has to deal with, she exceeds all expectations, is the happiest girl, and her family will do anything possible to keep it that way.

OSCAR’s are proud to have supported her with a Booster Box to put yet another big smile on her face, with all the gifts being chosen based around Immie’s favourite things, and also to have put the family in touch with another family in a similar circumstances.