Georgia's bid to secure £10,000 for son's life-changing surgery

A JustGiving page has been created by Georgia Belcher, who works within Occupational Health & Wellbeing at Culham, in a desperate bid to raise the £10,000 needed for her youngest son's life-altering surgery.

Little Jesse was born with a major brain abnormality, which has left him severely disabled. He has no control over his muscles, is unable to feed orally, and struggles with breathing. The two-year-old was due to have surgery in September, but the date was changed and cancelled twice before Georgia, and her husband Rob, were told there were no more elective surgery appointments.

Georgia said: "I can't bear to see him suffering the way he is. Jesse can't sleep because he can't breathe properly and struggles to clear his airway. Jesse can only use his mouth to breathe and ends up having multiple coughing fits and being sick throughout the day and night."

With little hope of an NHS appointment, Georgia set up the fundraising page which would allow Jesse to go private.

She said: "It was 2am one night and I decided I had to do something. So, I started trying to raise the money to do it privately."

Georgia, who has worked for the CNC for 11 years, and Rob have so far managed to secure over 45% of the funding needed.

It took months for Jesse's condition to be discovered. Georgia enjoyed a normal pregnancy but knew there was something very different soon after Jesse was born. There was a suspicion Jesse was blind, and he was first referred to a specialist eye hospital, before finally, an MRI scan uncovered Jesse was born with a significant portion of his brain missing.

Georgia said: "It was a complete shock, but for the months before I had a feeling in my stomach it must be something serious. It was totally devastating news, but also relieving because finally we knew it wasn't just in our heads, and there was something wrong.

"There are times when things feel desperate, but we have no choice but to keep going, for Jesse and our other children. We can't just give up. We are fortunate to have a great support network. Having a disabled child is life changing and it can be incredibly frustrating; we're always in fight mode to try and get Jesse the help he needs. Nothing is made easy. Any support, no matter no big or small, would really make a difference to our efforts in getting Jesse the help and support he needs."