I was born at 5.23am on Saturday 6th August 2005 by emergency caesarian section due to fetal bradycardia (very slow heartbeat). When I was born, I was not breathing and had only a faint heartbeat so I was resuscitated.
I was without oxygen for seventeen minutes and was extremely poorly and had started having fits almost immediately. Because of this, the doctors were sure that I had suffered brain damage and so asked my Mummy and Daddy if I could be part of something called the TOBY trial (for more information, see http://www.npeu.ox.ac.uk/toby/).

I was accepted onto the trial and had to be transferred by ambulance to the Queen Charlotte and Chelsea Hospital in Hammersmith where I stayed for eight days before coming back to Basildon. I was given my prognosis at six days old:
*'He won't walk.'
*'He won't talk.'
*'He won't hold his head.'
*He'll have a mental age of around two years old.'
*If he doesn't resolve his feeding issues, he'll be dead in 3 to 5 years.'

My diagnosis is very big because the older I get, the more apparent things are. At the moment I have:
*Hypoxic Ischaemic Encephalopathy - brain damage caused by lack of oxygen and blood flow
*Seizure disorder - epilepsy
*Gastro-oesphageal reflux disorder
*Right uretic reflux - kidney reflux
*Moderate bilateral hearing loss
*Eczema
*Four limb mixed cerebral palsy - quadraplegia
*Moderate to severe dysphasia - cannot swallow correctly
*Laryngeal malaecia - floppy larynx