BUILDING LILY'S LEGACY

After losing her daughter, Liz Curtis, 48, was determined to ensure her memory lives on

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Making my way back to the car after a shopping trip with my mum Joan and my seven-week-old daughter Lily, I couldn’t wait to get home and put the kettle on. Lily had been crying for a few minutes but as I reached into her pram to get her out, she went quiet. ‘She’s gone grey,’ I panicked, as I saw she was foaming at the mouth. ‘She’s not breathing.’

Holding Lily in my arms I phoned 999. Sensing my panic, two strangers ran over to help and by the time the first responders arrived Lily had started breathing again. Still, they took her to hospital for some tests but couldn’t find anything wrong so just a few hours later we were discharged.

Lily was my and my partner Dave’s third daughter. Born five weeks early on 24 August 2006 she had weighed a tiny 3lb 8oz. She had been kept in hospital for four weeks until she reached 4lb, during which time our daughters Katie, then three, and Rosie, 18 months, loved visiting her. And after coming home she was idolised by us all. But now, at seven weeks, she had us all worried.

Although doctors had reassured us that Lily was fine, I couldn’t shake the feeling that something was wrong and later that night I took her back to hospital. She became an inpatient and a chest X-ray revealed that her heart was enlarged on one side.

She was transferred by ambulance from East Surrey to the Royal Brompton Hospital where a specialist cardiologist confirmed that she had a heart condition but didn’t say that there was any immediate danger and we were referred back to our local hospital.