Noah's World Cup Challenge

Noah is an eight year old boy, from Edinburgh. He was born prematurely on 16th November 2017 at 31+1 and weighing only 3lb 10oz (1665g) at Simpsons, Edinburgh. A few hours after Noah’s birth we were told we would be blue lighted to the sick kids in Edinburgh, at this time it was at the meadows. They couldn’t get a feeding tube down to give him any sort of fluids.

We were taken over, where we met an incredible surgeon, Mr Phillip Hammond who confirmed that Noah had a very rare condition called Tracheosophegal Fistula (TOF for short). I appreciate that looks like another language so for simple terms it meant his oesophagus wasn’t connected to his stomach so he was born unable to swallow.

He told us if Noah made it through the night they would operate in the morning. Thankfully he did and they were able to operate and connect him in all the right places. They weren’t able to preform keyhole surgery, meaning they had to deflate a lung to get into his oesophagus. That lung has just never got back to normal.

The following day Noah went through 2 more rounds of surgery and he’s now had 10 surgeries to date.

Noah spent the first three months of his life in neonatal and was finally discharged on 11th February 2018. As you can imagine we were delighted to start our life properly as a family. Unfortunately this was cut short and on 16th February Noah actually died in his car seat. I’d put him in incorrectly and he stopped breathing. I tried to preform CPR but was unsuccessful, thankfully my husband took over and he brought him back around. He started to go again and needed 3 rounds of CPR in total before the ambulance came. They then rushed us into the hospital where he spent a number of weeks going through every test possible but I knew it was the positioning of the car seat and I told them from the beginning. Without my husband Noah would not be here today.

From there Noah was in and out of hospital continuously, spending his first 3 Christmas’ in hospital and numerous birthdays, Easter’s etc. He used to be placed into a coma and ventilated just for a cold.

We’re still visitors now, just thankfully more as outpatients.

Noah has a number of respiratory issues, severe tracheomalacia, severe bronchimalacia (again in simple terms it just means that all his air ways are very floppy). He sleeps with CPAP at night. Noah's actually registered as disabled due to his respiratory issues but he pushes himself every single day to make sure he fights it.

He plays football four times a week, enjoys cycling, going for a run and many more activities.

As the Edinburgh Children’s hospital charity (ECHC) have supported Noah since birth, he likes to support them too where he can.

He has ran two of the children’s Edinburgh Marathons for them and is about to sign up for another, he also ran one for Jak’s Den which are a charity based in Livingston who supported his friend from school who sadly passed away aged 7 to childhood cancer. He’s also walked two kiltwalks for ECHC and one for Hibernian community foundation. On top of this, he decided to give up having a birthday party for his 7th birthday and instead held a fundraiser for the charity raising £3000.

If Noah’s not playing football, he’s watching the games weather that’s as a season ticket holder at Easter Road, attending the Scotland games at Hampden or watching on TV. He eat sleeps and breathes football.

So he’s decided to combine his two passions of football and fundraising and set himself this challenge.

Noah’s World Cup Challenge.

As it’s been 28 years since Scotland last qualified for a World Cup, Noah’s attending 28 different football stadiums and taking 5 penalties at each to raise money for ECHC and wearing his Scotland kit.

So far he has attended Hibernian, Falkirk, Ayr United, Kilmarnock, Meadowbank, Spartans, Raith Rovers, Livingston, West Linton and today he’s just ticked off number 10 of his team that he plays for Edinburgh South.

You can donate to Noah's challenge through this link: Rachael Kerr is fundraising for Edinburgh Children's Hospital Charity

His socials if you’d like to see what we’re doing are:

Instagram: noahs_worldcupchallenge

TikTok: Noah.world.cup.challenge