Have a heart

With Valentine’s Day this week, thoughts turn to hearts and romantic meals for two: the chance to spend uninterrupted time with a loved one and escape hectic daily routines.

This year, I am asking you to please spare a thought for families caring for a life-threatened or terminally ill child who are supported by Rainbow Trust Children’s Charity.

Families like four-year-old

Evie’s. Little Evie has been living in Newcastle’s Freeman Hospital – an hour away from the family home - for one year on a Berlin (mechanical) heart awaiting the gift of a new heart.

Diagnosed with cardiomyopathy – disease of the heart muscle - when she was four months old, she was fitted with a Berlin Heart last February.

Rainbow Trust Family Support Worker Monica has been helping

Evie, her parents Chloe and David and brother Theo, five, cope with the huge impact this has had on their lives.

Monica spends time with Evie in hospital providing much-needed respite for her parents and brother.

Chloe said: “We’re split in half.

Theo is at school and Evie is in hospital, so one of us is always with her. It’s overwhelming for Theo as he’s lost half his family home.

We do struggle. Life would be a lot more challenging without Monica.”

Rainbow Trust Children’s Charity has nine Care Teams of Family

Support Workers across England providing practical and emotional support to families like Evie’s ensuring no family faces serious childhood illness alone.

If you find can find it in your heart to support families like Evie’s this Valentine’s Day please donate £5 to: www.rainbowtrust.org.uk/donate

Jen Kenward, director of care, Rainbow Trust Children’s

Charity