Our Leicester Children’s Hospital Appeal is about giving all of our children the hospital they deserve.

But it’s more than just children from Leicestershire & Rutland who stand to benefit.

Meet Trevor Palmer.

This charming, athletic 16-year-old knows the children’s heart services at Leicester’s Hospitals better than anyone, having faced the entirety of his short life being treated for a congenital heart problem.

But Trevor is not a Leicestershire lad – his family regularly travel all the way from Boston in Lincolnshire to Ward 30 at Glenfield Hospital, just so he can receive the vital treatment he needs.

For Trevor and his mum Claire, it’s worth it.

“From travelling outside of Leicestershire, all I can say is that it’s well worth the travel,” says Claire.

“It’s the confidence we’ve built up with the staff here. It’s the friendliness they have. The feel of it.”

With no indication that there was anything wrong with Trevor’s heart prior to his birth, learning that her son needed immediate and acute medical care came as quite the shock to Claire.

“Trevor was born with a bit of a crackly sound in his throat,” she explains.

“The paediatrician came to check him over and realised that Trevor was able to breathe air in, but struggled to exhale it out. It turned out he had two aortas and one was wrapped around his windpipe.

As a new-born baby, Trevor was moved to hospitals across the East Midlands before receiving his first major surgery at Glenfield Hospital at just eight days old.

“Obviously it’s quite daunting as a parent, knowing that there’s something wrong with your baby and you’ve got to trust someone else to take care of it,” Claire says. “Taking him to theatre for surgery never gets easier. Trusting surgeons with your baby is really hard.

Trevor has spent his young life in and out of Glenfield Hospital, having his first pacemaker installed at five-and-a-half months old, then having operation after operation to help him manage his heart condition.

Despite trying to keep life at home and school as normal as possible, a literal lifetime of medical intervention has understandably taken its toll on Trevor’s mental health. Over the last 18 months, Trevor has been dealing with severe trypanophobia, or fear of needles and injections.

While Trevor has been receiving mental health support to help him with this, Claire credits the staff at Glenfield Hospital for how much care they’ve shown her son.

“The staff at Glenfield Hospital have worked really hard to overcome these issues,” says Claire.

“It’s a hard thing to come to terms with. At 16, life seems very unfair anyway. So to then be told that you’re going to have another surgery less than a year after having a pacemaker installed, it doesn’t seem right. Your heart’s fine, my heart’s fine, their heart’s fine, but his isn’t.”

Trevor himself isn’t afraid to be honest with his feelings about what he’s had to live through so far in his young life.

“I think a lot of people wouldn’t like to admit this, because it’s not a very nice thing to say,” Trevor explains, “but one of the main things that I think a lot of people like me think about is ‘why do I deserve this?’

“How am I in hospital when it’s not my fault? How come this happens to me when there are so many people out there who do bad things or are just horrible people and they don’t have to face anything like this?”

Spending so much time in hospital throughout his life, Trevor feels a strong connection with a lot of the younger patients he sees on the ward.

“I try not to moan too much now, because I know I’ve been through worse and I’m on the mend, unlike some of the other kids who are going through worse situations,” he explains.

“I think of this four year old lad I know who’s had a heart transplant. I love him to bits. He doesn’t deserve that. I still moan, but I try and moan about small things. Less ‘ugh, I’ve got to have an IV in 20 minutes’, more ‘ugh, I’ve got to unload the dishwasher again’.”

With his love for sport, particularly golf, Trevor doesn’t let his condition prevent him from being active and doing the things he enjoys.

“I’ve done a bit of athletics and things like that,” says Trevor. “I still enjoy it. I wish I could do more of it sometimes. I’m looking at going to college and doing a sport course and then maybe try getting into coaching.

“One thing that bugs me is when people who know my family meet me for the first time and are shocked that I am how I am. In their mind, their idea of what a ‘heart patient’ is isn’t a lad who looks like me who loves sport. Their image of someone with a heart condition is someone who lives a bad lifestyle who doesn’t do any exercise.

“I’m not going to change everyone’s mind, but if some people realise that that’s not the only kind of heart condition you can have. You can still lead a good life, I think that helps.”

Claire says she remains so grateful to the children’s heart services at Leicester’s Hospitals for the way staff continue to support her son.

“Originally, we were told that if the East Midlands Congenital Heart Centre closed at Glenfield Hospital, our options would be either Birmingham or London – and that was pretty daunting,” explains Claire.

“Trevor has had two surgeries at Birmingham before and that was a nightmare for us compared to coming here. The thought of not being able to come to Leicester and the hospital services here at all anymore was daunting.

“You wish you could say to people – even to other parents of patients here – that it gets easier. But it doesn’t. It’s a lifelong thing and it doesn’t get easier. And when they get older, you have to deal with the emotional and mental toll from what they’ve been through since birth. What you thought might not be affecting them can catch up with them later. So it’s a lifelong journey and the children’s heart services here in Leicester have been here to support them through all of it.”

We are proud of our amazing children’s heart services and want to help make them even better by helping to give our region a new, state-of-the-art children’s hospital here in Leicester.

Please show your support for fantastic young people like Trevor and all our children by donating to and signing up to support the Leicester Children’s Hospital Appeal.

Visit DoThemProud.com to donate or sign up today. For more information about some of the exciting events and challenges you could take part in to help raise funds for this important appeal, please click here.

Or for more information, tips or ideas about how to get involved, download our fantastic fundraising guide by clicking here.