Hi, my name is Sienna and I’m looking forward to my 6th Birthday in April. I’m at school now and have made lots of lovely friends. I go to dance classes, Stagecoach acting classes, swimming lessons and even play football. I've got a little sister called Scarlett, who is four, and who I sometimes fight with, but most of the time we are best friends. 

I was born on Friday 16th April and on Saturday 11th December, just eight months old; I was admitted to Leighton Hospital, Crewe feeling very poorly and with a temperature of 40 degrees. After being diagnosed with tonsillitis I was sent home.

The next day, Sunday 12th December, my mummy and daddy took me back to hospital as I had started to feel even more poorly. As it turned out, I was so ill that even the doctors and nurses at Leighton Hospital couldn't help me and I had to be transferred to the intensive care unit at Alder Hey Hospital, Liverpool. At the time the doctors thought I had something called 'Streptococcal septicaemia' but it later turned out I also had Swine Flu. However, it wasn't as simple as putting me in an ambulance and sending me to Alderhey as my little body had gone into 'Toxic Shock' and was in the process of shutting down completely. A specialist team from the North West Paediatric Service (NWTS) had to be called in at 4am in the morning and it took them nearly ten hours to stabilise me and prepare me for the journey to Liverpool.

The NWTS was only set up in November 2010 and is made up of a dedicated team of paediatricians, doctors and nurses who transport critically ill children throughout the North of England and Wales to specialist hospitals like Alder Hey. There is no doubt that these wonderful people, along with the doctors and nurses of the Alder Hey Intensive Care Unit saved my life and I shall always be grateful to them.

My mummy spoke to the NWTS team to thank them for saving my life and to see what we can do to help fund this new service.

So far my Mummy, Daddy & their friends & family have helped me raise over  £120,000 in the last 4  years by doing skydives, London to Paris bike ride, 3 peaks challenge, Wild Warrior, Manchester 10K,  Paris marathon and charity auction nights. This has bought 2 Oxylog ventilators, 2 training manikins & a Sonosite Ultra sound.

However, all this life-saving equipment is very expensive so we want to keep on raising money for the NWTS so I have been training to do my very 1st 5k run, which is the Glow in the dark run at the end of October at Heaton Park. My cousin Lewis,  who is 11 is doing it with me along with my Uncle Ryan & Auntie Sophie, my Mummy & some of her friends.

I am hoping that this will get me a lot closer to my next target of £150,000

Thank you to everyone who has supported our fund-raising efforts so far. 

Lots of Love

Sienna Lilly xxxxx