1st December 2015 – Update to our Charity Page
We are delighted to announce that we have set up a legacy in William’s memory, this is where we will pay any of our fundraising efforts in to. This page is:
www.justgiving.com/williamoscarmead
25th February 2015 – Update to our Charity Page
A lovely lady who has been supporting me through this set up a Go Fund Me page after hearing that we would like William’s ashes made into diamonds for wedding bands. We can’t afford to do this with our savings having been spent on William’s funeral. Thank you so much for your donations it means so much to us.
http://www.gofundme.com/mwot9w
28th January 2015 – Update to our Charity Page
Who Gives A Rock are a non-profit art abandonment group who paint beautiful pebbles and leave them in all manner of places around the county for the unsuspecting public to find, to bring smiles to people’s faces and love to people’s lives. Who Gives a Rock have kindly donated 4 rocks that they’ll be auctioning off this evening (link below) and any money raised will be donated to William’s Just Giving page. We cannot thank Who Gives a Rock and Pebble Painter enough for their generosity in raising awareness and spreading the love of William’s legacy. He would be very proud, as are we.
https://www.facebook.com/groups/WhoGivesARockAuctions/
When William passed away many friends and family asked whether they could send us flowers, but there were so many we thought the money would be better spent if it was donated to charity in lieu of flowers.
We decided on a local charity called Frontline Emergency Equipment Trust (FLEET). FLEET is a charity which is provides emergency equipment of all the Frontline ambulances in Cornwall. FLEET has provided equipment, bags, boxes, bins and much more to standardise the Cornish FLEET of ambulances.
We set up a Just Giving page for those that wanted to donate in William’s memory. We spoke to FLEET with our desire for any money donated in William’s memory to be spent on paediatric equipment, which they agreed to and would also have William’s name displayed on it.
We have been completely overwhelmed and humbled with the volume of people donating. To date the amount raised is £2,350 with over £500 of giftaid, all of which will go to the charity.
Any donations, no matter how small or large are greatly appreciated, thank you.
The story has been in local papers:
A Mother Without a Child 
Dear Mrs and Mr Mead,
My wife and I learned of your greatest loss last year. (We live at Haytor in Devon) We have two adopted children and fostered 12 in the 80’s. I wrote to Mr Pym, the senior health correspondent at the BBC in London yesterday, with a copy to Scott Bingham. I believed there was need for some clarification for the sake of any little one who is very ill in the future.
I will send you this letter to you if you wish and I would be very happy to discuss it with you later.
for truth and with good wishes
David Halpin MB BS FRCS
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Please do, you can email it to me melissahmead@gmail.com and thank you. Losing William a life sentence and we’re putting one foot in front of the other.
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Hello,
Very sorry to hear about your gorgeous boy William, We also lost our 16 month old little girl Alyssia in very similar circumstances 3 years ago tomorrow (17th June 2013), We were told she had rapid onset pneumonia, Septic shock and then the end result was meningoencephalitis, Alyssia was a strong vibrant girl who showed no real sign of illness apart from being slightly grizzly for a couple of days beforehand, she awoke early on the morning of the 17th and began being sick, we phone an ambulance and they said was probably an upper tract infection and took us slowly to A&E, Dr’s there immediately tried to get her on IV antibiotics but struggled as she was dehydrated, within 8 hours she had deteriorated and passed away at 16:45.
We found out 3 months later that my wife was pregnant (complete accident) and when we went for the first scan were were told we are having twins! Our emotions were all over the place, we didnt know what to feel, happy? sad, mad, angry even. The girls are now 26 months old and we talk about their big sister Doodle every day, they have been our strength and a blessing. We are still very paranoid about any illness with them and as soon as they get a chesty sounding cough we have them straight tot he Dr (twice this week for Hannah), but we have a very good GP who reassures us and has become a very good friend.
I think i just wanted to let you know that you are doing amazing and that the new baby will be tough for a hundred different reasons but you will always have William by yours and his / hers side looking over you.
Thanks
Simon
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Wow, thank you for writing to me. I’m so sorry to hear your lost your little girl in similar circumstances. It never gets easier does it? It’s hard to explain to people the feelings around our second baby. People don’t really understand and I’m thankful they don’t understand. But we like to think of the new baby as a gift from William. Like your twins they give you strength, but I suspect I’ll be the same, paranoid about everything but then I suppose that’s entirely normal in our situation… Melissa x
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Hello Melissa. I know you have heard this a million times but I am so so sorry for your loss. I am a mom to a 14 month old boy and I cannot even begin to imagine the pain your family and your sweet boy has suffered. I just want to thank you for doing this amazing job of spreading awareness about sepsis. It makes one think even in this modern age so many things can go wrong and we have to be watchful around our babies all the time. Thanks again! and goodluck for your 2nd child
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