I consider myself a pretty decent human being. I recycle, and hold lift doors open, and donate to charity.
But, compared to Ann Maxwell, I’m an altruistic amateur.
Just months after her youngest son Muir, now 16, was born, he started suffering from terrifying epileptic seizures. Then, when he was two, Ann noticed his vocabulary was decreasing.
‘Something was wrong,’ she remembers, ‘but I couldn’t get that message across to the medical professionals.’
They dismissed him as low on the development spectrum, but Ann just knew it was something more. She refused to stop pushing for answers. Together with husband, Jonny, they set up the Muir Maxwell Trust, to provide support, and specialist medical advice, to other families living with complex epilepsy.
Finally, when Muir was 10, he was diagnosed with Dravet Syndrome: a severe and incurable form of epilepsy that causes behavioural and learning difficulties, and developmental delays.
They were told that only 80 cases had been diagnosed, world wide. Ann knew the Trust could make real difference. She threw herself into fundraising, building the Muir Maxwell Trust (update – the trust has since been wound up, but you can find information and resources by searching The Daisy Garland) into one of the UK’s leading charities for paediatric epilepsy.
Today it also funds DNA testing, increases awareness, and supplies life-saving diagnostic equipment to hospitals.
These achievements are amazing on their own, but they become even remarkable when you find out that, in 2006, Ann was diagnosed with a brain tumour. She underwent surgery, and had part of her jaw, and her inner ear removed; requiring a partial facial reconstruction.
It barely slowed Ann down, and, to date, the Trust has raised £7 million, and put a further £1million towards the Muir Maxwell Epilepsy Centre research project.
No wonder, then, that Ann has just been announced as CHARITABLE MUM OF THE YEAR at the Tesco Mum of the Year Awards 2013.
And I’ll be there, clapping wildly, and sobbing into my serviette, as Ann, and six other deserving winners, are recognised at a star-studded ceremony at the Savoy Hotel, on Sunday, 2 March, 2013.
I’ll be Tweeting throughout the day AND the awards are being shown on Channel 5 the following Sunday, on Mother’s Day.
See you there!
READ: Tesco Mum of the Year Awards 2012
