Georgia Viney

One night I was laying down and observing my daughter Amaya sleep, all I could think about is how blessed she is to be here still. I thought how could I ever thank the hospital that saved her life. I quickly messaged my friend Jen and Jaide and said “let's walk 25km to raise money for the Royal Children’s Hospital ”. I thought they’d both say I’m crazy and just dead set “no way” They said, “Yes let’s do it”. Although a 25km walk does seem a bit crazy right? Well, we are crazy. Myself, and my amazing friends Jaide, Edith, Hannah, Jen and her partner Ash are all coming along for the 25km walk. We’ll be walking from Bendigo CBD to Axedale on April 24th to raise money for the Royal Children’s Hospital on behalf of my 4-year-old daughter Amaya. We’ll be dressed up as some of Amaya’s favourite characters to spread some cheer and laughter too.

Amaya has had a rough trot in her 4 years of life. 7 months old we discovered a large brain tumour on her brain stem which was deemed inoperable, it caused an obstruction and led to hydrocephalus which resulted in emergency brain surgery to redirect the fluid (ETV). She’s marched on strong through all that with just regular MRIs to monitor tumour growth. The tumour has produced some internal cysts, and the tumour has been slowly growing and will require chemotherapy at some point in the near future. She has had some delays due to all this with understanding and speech, headaches and seizures but thankful that’s been all.

At 22 months old Amaya was admitted to the ICU at the Royal Children’s, fighting for her life with Streptococcus Pneumonia, empyema, Sepsis, Haemolytic Uremic Syndrome (HUS) which then caused pancreatitis and acute renal failure and she was placed onto dialysis. She fought so hard and was so resilient, she bounced back quicker than anyone ever thought. She was taken off dialysis and she was discharged. Hoping to leave that all nightmare behind, Amaya had suffered from severe trauma and it affected her mentally and her sleep dramatically and she feared being alone at night. She has been amazing and such a trooper and getting through this slowly.

RCH has saved my daughter's life more than once, let alone thousands of others. The nurses and doctors are incredible and all Amaya’s specialists are the sweetest, kindest, empathetic people and I couldn’t think of any other hospital team looking, after all, Amaya’s needs.

Our goal is to raise $5,000, every cent and dollar counts so please help us raises funds to enable The Royal Children’s Hospital Melbourne to provide world-class care to all children.

I’ll be always forever grateful for the incredible work the RCH does. And it's thanks to them we have a happy, active child today.