A Mother's Courage

Vicky Pickard is dying – but she’s her disabled child’s sole carer. She explains why she is using her last days to fundraise for her daughter Jessica’s care.

- Georgina Fuller

It was during her 30-week scan that Vicky Pickard first had an inkling there was something wrong with her daughter. ‘I was told by the medical staff that she would have a possible brain abnormality and genetic disorder,’ she says. Sadly, this was proved right. Jessica, who is now 18, was born with two holes in her heart, autism and epilepsy, as well as Toriello-Carey syndrome – a condition defined by distinguishing facial features and learning disabilities. The syndrome is so rare that only 50 other people in the world have been diagnosed with it.

Vicky’s marriage broke down when Jessica was just nine months old as Jessica’s father, who hasn’t seen his daughter since she was two, couldn’t accept things as they were. It meant that Vicky, now 44, had to give up her job as a clinical support worker to care for her daughter full-time.

‘At the beginning, we lived day by day with Jessica,’ Vicky says. In the early years, her daughter often used to suddenly stop breathing an hour or so after falling asleep. ‘Jess has been on ventilators and in and out of hospital most of her life and sleeps with a heart monitor,’ says Vicky.

However, she has defied the odds to survive and is doing well at Chelmsford College,which has a special provision for children with additional needs and autism. ‘Jess goes there four days a week now and she loves it. She has grown so much in confidence and independence and we are so proud of her.’