Harrison S's quilt    (Quilt currently being assembled)

Theme details

Mixture - Lego, Cats, RNLI, emergency services

A good mixture please.

Cute or realistic cats rather than geometric/abstract etc Cat details in profile if we can get close to those!

Biography

Harrison is my beautiful boy who is an only child and of course the apple of my eye. Growing up he was a healthy, active and cheeky boy who loves nothing more than real heroes. From preschool to present day he loves to dress up as his heroes.

In late November 2022 Harrison complained of feeling full, my instinct was he was constipated. I kept him off school but two days later nothing had improved so I took him to the drs, explained his symptoms and was given Movicol. Still no change and he refused to drink the medicine. Off to the pharmacy we went, he was very lethargic and not able to walk his usual speed. Pharmacist gave us Lactulose to try. By this time I’m thinking this isn’t right and noticed his breathing was getting shallower. By the time I spoke to 111 Harrison had started retching, was not able to sleep and also developed a sharp pain in the tip of his left shoulder! Whilst waiting for 111 to call back I made the decision to go to urgent care. Spoke to the dr, mentioned his breathing, didn’t seem concerned but referred us to the local hospital. Got to the hospital children’s a&e . Mentioned to the triage nurse about his breathing and she looked and said, yes something definitely wrong, got him onto a nebuliser and ordered a chest Xray. Within an hour of arriving at a&e Harrison was then surrounded by nurses prepping him for surgery. He was whisked away sobbing as I’d said he probably wouldn’t have to stay in hospital! Parent fail!

Three hours later he’s sedated and has a chest drain in his left lung as it’s FULL of fluid! I didn’t get to see my beautiful boy awake again until 8 days later! We were blue lighted that night to Kings Hospital and that’s where he stayed for a couple of nights in intensive care, and on 1 December I got the awful news that he had a mass in his thorax! And the devastating news he had cancer. My world collapsed, I was alone as my family were still on their way to see us. We were them blue lighted again to St George’s where he stayed in PICU for a further 5 days. Harrison was then transferred to the step down unit where we lived for another 3 weeks. We got out just in time for Christmas to then be admitted to Kings as he’d developed a fever. We made it home 11pm Christmas Eve.

Harrison loves to celebrate Christmas so we tried our best but to say it was our worst is an understatement! The first 8 months of treatment saw us spend life boomeranging between hospital and home.

Harrison is now in the maintenance period of his treatment which thankfully has stabilised with spending lots more time at home, his favourite place to be. Returning to school and having a home tutor to help him catch up with his school work.

Harrison will be on maintenance treatment until 28 March 2026! Only 21 more pulses of steroids! Yes we’re counting down as they are by far the worst bit of his treatment for all of us.

Thank you so much for all you wonderful people do to help children be more comfortable through their treatment. Ps we love a good snuggle under a beautiful quilt xx

Patterns

Squares received

Card

Stitched by: Heather Jepson