Our daughter Imogen was born in 2012 at 30 weeks, and spent her first month in intensive care. When the time finally came to leave the hospital, we were relieved and felt incredibly lucky to be taking home a healthy baby, despite her premature entry into the world.
But when she was around six months old, we noticed she had stopped laughing and taking an interest in her surroundings. We knew something was very wrong when she started making strange movements, so we took her to A&E, where we were told that she had a catastrophic and potentially fatal form of epilepsy called West Syndrome. Imogen was subsequently diagnosed with cerebral palsy, and had to undergo major surgery on her hips and femur bones as they had not formed properly.
