Make William Smile

William is a little boy with a number of health complications but even more fight. Born almost two months early, he has been in and out of hospital ever since.

To best care for their young son, parents Glenn and Jemma are trying to build a new home for themselves. A home that will be suited to their needs; with large doorways and room for walkers and wheelchairs, on a single level, and well insulated.

Alex and Michelle, the local owners of the G.J. Gardner Homes franchise in Wanganui, desperately want to help and have offered a heavily discounted house and land package for these very deserving parents and personal friends. The Wanganui G.J. Gardner Homes is a local family owned business, and Alex and Michelle have done all they can on the price of a new home, but want to help even more. Michelle has set up this Give-a-little page to assist in raising the remaining required funds.

William was born on the 30th of November, 2012. He was due 8th of February, 2013. His initial stay in hospital was 117 days and has since been in and out regularly. At almost 6 months, on the 24/05/2013 he smiled for the first time... his first real smile!!

He was born with many medical conditions including the following:

1. Ex prem 30weeks

2. Partial chromosome two deletion (diagnoses of never walk, never talk, only 20 ish ever recorded cases, with much smaller deletions so not much data to go on...)

3. Atrial septal defect (hole in his heart, due for review in 2016, surgery at some stage in the next year or so)

4. Hypoplastic corpus callosum

5. Left talipes, corrected (club foot, ongoing physio to keep corrected, some flat foot)

6. Cleft palate, surgically corrected

7. Chronic lung disease

8. Pulmonary hypoplasia

9. Duodenoplasty, Nissen fundoplication and gastrostomy tube (done Dec 2014 - tube feeding through mickey button in his tummy plus surgery to help stomach emptying and stop chronic reflux)

His parents are incredibly grateful for all the help they have received from Wellington hospital, Wanganui hospital, Palmerston North hospital and Starship hospital.

His day to day issues are as follows:

He is very susceptible to illness especially respiratory colds and flus. A recent coughing fit resulted in a seizure. His paediatrician suspects that his lung function is starting to deteriorate but this needs to be tested to confirm. Often requires home oxygen for a period of time after a respiratory illness.

William has had many outpatient appointments and clinics to attend to.

He is currently attending dietician for nutrition and fluid requirements, and has children's home care nurses for weight gain monitoring and ordering supplies, he has to have speech language therapy (for eating) and a referral to SLTs at Ministry of Education for speech, occupational and child physio therapists for development, BLENDZ (Blind and Low Vision Education Network NZ) for sensory monitoring, audiologist for hearing monitoring, ENT for grommets and another ENT for sleep apnea when unwell, orthopaedic surgeon for club foot, ophthalmologist and optometrists for vision and eye development, cleft team in Hutt Valley Hospital for all issues surrounding cleft side effects, heart clinic with surgeon from Starship to monitor hole In his heart, paediatrician appointments to coordinate current issues and referrals. Have also recently been discharged from the Wellington Paed surgeon from his mickey button surgery in 2014.

William will always have major developmental delays, 6-9 months developmentally. His current weight is 11.3 kgs and 84cm (9th percentile for weight and 0.4 percentile for length). His parents Jemma Huijs and Glenn Huijs are very grateful that we live in such a country where a lot of help is freely available. This little boy couldn't have been born to better parents, they do everything they can to provide him with the best life and never ask for help. They are doing everything they can to raise enough money to buy a new more suitable house. They accept that there will never be a cure for William but maybe all they can do is provide him with a warm, dry, spacious and possibly new home for him to be able to freely use his equipment (standing frames, wheelchairs etc.) and to give his lungs a little bit of help. The money we raise will be put towards building William and his lovely parents a more suitable, single level, well insulated house with large doorways and room for walkers, wheel chairs etc. As the local family owned franchise of G.J. Gardner Homes Wanganui, my husband and I are doing everything we can to help Glenn, Jemma and William to get into a new house before next winter.