While other families are celebrating at home, you find yourself trying to create a little bit of Christmas magic in a place that can feel isolating and lonely. During our time in hospital, I saw just how much the little things mattered. I saw how important it is to bring that magic to the bedside of seriously sick children.

Sophie was born in 2016. For the first couple of weeks, I knew something wasn’t right. When I brought her to the doctors, we learned that Sophie had been born with biliary atresia, a liver disease where the bile ducts are blocked. She needed an operation as soon as possible, so when she was just 7 weeks old, my partner Dermot and I travelled to the UK from our home in County Kildare so Sophie could have the procedure.

Back at Children’s Health Ireland at Crumlin, Sophie developed fluid in her abdomen, passed blood in her stool and became more and more jaundiced. The liver team took her to theatre so many times to try and stop it. In the end she needed a new liver.

After three months on the priority transplant list, it was the third call that was finally the match we were hoping for. We were in London at the time, just a five-minute walk from the hospital when we got the news that a donor liver had been found for Sophie.

It still wasn’t over. Shortly before Sophie was due to return home, her body rejected the transplanted liver. The doctors treated the rejection with steroids and her condition stabilised. She settled back at CHI at Crumlin.

The surgeons saved Sophie’s life. But there was something else that got our family through it.

For around 15 months, CHI at Crumlin became a major part of our family life. I’ll tell you what got us through.

Every first milestone Sophie experienced – Halloween, Christmas, her first birthday – had all been spent in hospital.

One moment in particular was when Mickey and Minnie Mouse visited her and the other sick children in hospital. To see her smile and her face light up is something I’ll never forget.

A health play specialist visited Sophie. When she was well enough to be out of her cot, the play team brought toys, and I could move the bed around to give her more room to play. Sophie also saw a psychologist. Her clinical team was part of that support too.

I got to know the nurses as well as the doctors and became very close to them. I remember the doctors and nurses coming in at nighttime and sitting down just to have a chat with me. Sophie’s clinical nurse specialists on the liver team are still there whenever we need guidance. The relationship that I have with them is unbelievable.

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