You have already been introduced to Lila, our life-limited Little Star with complex needs, and who Children’s Hospice has been caring for with regular assisted short breaks at our Horizon House In-Patient Unit. Now meet Lila’s big sister Mila, and find out how two-and-a-half-year-old Mila is a Little Star in her own right!
Please help our Little Stars
Our Children’s Hospice care team have been described by Mum Hayley and Dad Robert as “amazing”, for how Hospice has looked after wee Lila, but also for how they have supported the whole family, enabling them to have precious time all together and receive assisted short breaks at our children’s IPU facility at Horizon House.
Mum Hayley says: “Mila loves helping. She says ‘I want to help my baby sister.’ I suppose at their age, they should be playing with each other and interacting with the children. But Mila’s done great. She’ll come in every morning and say ‘Good morning, baby Lila!’ She wants to help make her bottles and help with her feeds, help change her nappy, help bath her and wash her hair. She shares her toys with Lila. Mila just loves her to bits. She loves singing to her, including on Lila’s birthday, and giving her kisses. Lila also has two big brothers, Ethan and Cordell, who dote on her too.
“Hospice is just amazing. Mila loves going to Hospice too – when we go to drop Lila off, Mila doesn’t want to leave her. Mila loves it there, she enjoys feeding and soft play when she’s up at Hospice. When we first went to Hospice, Mila was 18 months. The last visit we had, I had to carry her out, she wasn’t for leaving! And the nurses are great with her. And if we do happen to go up to Children’s Hospice, and Mila’s not with us, they’re asking where she’s at!
“Hospice was like Mila’s second home for a while too. The nurses take her and give her piggybacks up and down the corridor! If we’re in talking to somebody and doing a wee handover from our previous visits, then the nurses will take Mila down to soft play and play with her for wee while.
“The minute they see the car pull up there, everyone’s there to meet Mila and start wheeling her in the trolley that they have there as you walk in through the front door. Everyone within that whole building – all the ladies in the office, whether they’re a nurse, or the cleaners or the maintenance workers – they’re all so happy to see Mila run up and down the halls that all of them will go out of their way to stop what they’re doing, to come in and say hello. I couldn’t fault any of them.
“I couldn’t put into words how important Hospice’s role has been in our journey, especially after what we had gone through beforehand, with the months of pure chaos after Lila being born and diagnosed. Very, very different from the hospital.”
Dad Robert says: “In the Hospice it felt more like you were coming home. It is so much more family-orientated, more comforting. It was just amazing. We loved it from the moment we got in there, including both Lila and Mila. It was the first time really, from Lila was born, that we were all together, including my two boys Ethan and Cordell, and it was just, so nice after all the chaos of panic and no sleep. Hospice felt like a safe zone. And it’s great, unbelievable. Hospice makes a difference for everybody – for Lila, and for Mila too, not to mention for us as parents getting time together and the respite support.
“Without the hospice, I honestly don’t know where we would be, or how we would have coped.”
Sign up for our CONNECT newsletter
