Sienna won the hearts of every member of our audience.
An exquisite dancer, we invited 12 year old Sienna to dance for her little brother Rafi who we support through Rosies Rainbow Fund.
Here is Rafi's story which we read to our audience in this message from Rafi’s parents -Laura and Dean.
"On behalf of the Amer family, I feel compelled to express our gratitude to Rosie and her family, who have supported us in our sons recent and ongoing battle.
The charity has supported us in so many ways that we simply could not imagine going through this without their support.
Our beautiful son, Rafi, was enjoying his pizza party for his 7th birthday 8 months ago, when he began to show worrying symptoms. Rafi was rushed to Southampton hospital. He was suffering end stage kidney failure and anaemia.
He had somehow, ingested a dangerous strain of e.coli bacteria which progressed to a life threatening condition. Things went from bad to worse and Rafi fell into a coma. Then suffering severe and catastrophic brain injury.
Rafi was left unable to walk, talk, eat, cough, swallow, gag, blink, see, hear and even comprehend the world around him.
It has been painfully slow for the family to have our boy slowly claw his way back to us over half a year, but that is exactly what he is doing after surviving such incalculable odds.
Rafi is currently residing at a brain rehabilitation clinic where, miraculously, he is able to perceive the world around him, know who he is and who family and friends are, move his limbs in response to questions.
He is now starting to sit up by himself and above all has the most infectious laughter you have ever heard. Despite being unable to speak or move functionally, he is recognisable to the Rafi we always knew.
Rafi has defied the odds largely due to the love, support and intense therapy we were able to give him.
As two self-employed parents, we had the support of the Rosie’s Rainbow Fund to take some time off work so we could be by Rafi’s side.
The only reason this was possible without worrying about the strains of daily living, was because Rosie made it so.
We truly believe Rosie’s rainbow fund is therefore directly responsible for Rafis immense cognitive improvements and recovery, and for this we are infinitely grateful .
But the help and support didn’t stop there. Carolyn, Ellie and Sam all reached out to us with emotional support, constantly assuring us they were there if we needed them.
They truly helped us through some tragic times and It was immeasurably comforting to be able to talk to a family who had lived a similar devastating tragedy, a family that sadly understood.
The charity continued to reach out and started to offer support for our 12 year old daughter Sienna.
Rosie’s Rainbow Fund then made it possible for Rafi to receive 10 weeks of music therapy. We are a musical family and this bought such comfort knowing Rafi would have music back in his life rather than the mundane noises of the hospital.
The nurses were amazed when the second the music therapist started playing, Rafi’s high heart rate would drop to normal range and our little boy who hadn’t slept in days would peacefully close his eyes and sleep.
Indeed, these words of thanks are not enough to express our immeasurable gratitude, but it is all we can offer.
We never had the pleasure of meeting Rosie but we have been so touched by her story.
I have no doubt that she would be so proud of what Carolyn and all at Rosie’s Rainbow fund has achieved.
Thank you just doesn’t seem enough, from the Amer family."