On 8th October 2017 I will be running the Royal Parks Foundation Half Marathon to raise money for The Little Jimmy Brighter Future Fund, a fund within the Great Ormond Street Hospital Charity established in memory of James Shaw. Little Jimmy died in October 2016 despite the heroic attempts by the team at GOSH to save his life. I will be running alongside (or more accurately "behind") a number of colleagues from St Paul's School to raise money to buy 2 much needed new ventilators for the GOSH ambulance retrieval team.

Thank you for your support. Sophie.

Please continue reading for more about Jimmy by his mother, Emily Shaw:

"James William Shaw was born on 21st September 2016, followed 3 minutes later by his sister Isabel. Both twins were thriving at home, our 18 month old Alexa was just beginning to understand that she was an older sister and my husband, Peter, and I were excitedly looking to the future as a family of 5, Then , at just 5.5 weeks old Jimmy became suddenly, unexpectedly an devastatingly unwell with presumed sepsi and a complicating blood clot to the bowel. Despite the determined efforts of our local hospital, the Children's Acute Transfer Service (CATS) retrieval team and ultimately Great Ormond Street Hospital Intensive Care Unit, Jimmy could not be saved. He died in our arms two days after becoming unwell, covered in the kisses of his mummy and daddy, who told him how loved he was. It is beyond words how traumatised we were left by seeing Jimmy so desperately sick and how bereft his death left us, our hearts were truly broken. Then, three weeks after Jimmy died, and just two days after we had buried him, his twin sister Izzy too became unwell with an unrelated condition, we were just seemingly that unlucky. With 24 hours Izzy was undergoing emergency surgery at Great Ormond Street. We genuinely believed we were going to lose a second child that day. Thankfully Izzy's surgery was successful and she recovered.

I am a hospital doctor and can honestly say that in my 11 years experience as a clinician I have never seen such a unanimous, continuous and determined effort and bloody-minded resolve to save a life as with Jimmy. The medical staff gave blood, sweat and tears to save my little boy, he received the best possible care in the work, by the most humane doctors and nurses I have ever met and for that I am beholden to them. Beyond  the world-class care both he and Izzy received at GOSH, our family received unbounded care and kindness, practical support (such as neighbouring accommodation) and pastoral support that continues to this day. GOSH gave us our very best hope of saving Jimmy, saved the life of Izzy and took extremely delicate and humane care of us parents in the process.

Very soon after these experiences we became resolved on trying to repay some of our perceived incalculable debt to GOSH, nurture something positive out of such a tragic loss and continue to strive to keep Jimmy's memory alive. We are pulling together an army of impossibly loyal family and friends to join us in fundraising a hugely ambitious amount of money for GOSH, specifically in Jimmy's name, as his legacy. We are aiming to fundraise a total of £107,649 to buy two much needed new ventilators for their CATS ambulance retrieval team. Please donate what you can, share our staory and let us know if you too would like to fundraise in Jimmy's name by emailing us on littlejimmybrighterfuturefund@gmail.com. Love and gratitude from Emily, Pete, Lexy and Izzy Shaw xx".

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