The story of Hayley
My son (now nearly 10) was born with a condition called Hirschsprungs Disease which affects 1 in 5,500. The condition involves a section of bowel that lacks ganglion cells which are necessary for the muscle to propel waste along the bowel. The condition is not diagnosed before birth so when he was born it was a huge shock when our baby became ill quite quickly. We had no answer initially as to why he didn’t want to feed, hadn’t opened his bowels and was vomiting green bile. After a week in our local hospital he was transferred to the Heath hospital in Cardiff (25 miles away) where he was given his diagnosis following a number of biopsies taken from his bowel. He then went on to have a ‘pull through’ operation which involved taking out the affected part of the bowel (thankfully in his case it was only a small section) and the two healthy ends of bowel were re-joined. He came home from hospital 4 days later to his older 3 siblings who couldn’t wait to spoil him and apart from a few minor problems fro time to time with constipation and having to take Movicol every day, our little soldier is a happy, healthy little boy! ❤️