Caitlin’s Story

18 August 2022

I am DS Barry GOODSELL, and I work in the central MOSOVO team in Maidstone.

I want to tell you about a journey my family and I have been on, a journey that we could never have envisaged. I want to explain how, when we felt everything was as bad as it could get, there was the Police Benevolent Fund who supported us when life was at its toughest.

17 years ago, my second child , Caitlin, was born. Up until she was eight weeks old, we thought that we had 1 very petite but healthy baby. Soon after the eight weeks we discovered that Caitlin had an extremely complex heart condition which was life threatening. At this time, I was working in the Area Crime Unit which was a very busy unit to be working in. The stress of my role and suddenly becoming a carer for my daughter, put a lot of pressure on myself and my family.

My daughters’ condition was a life-threatening condition and the constant knowledge that Caitlin was close to death was always there making us more and more anxious.

From the age of 6 months Caitlin had several heart operations and had the final Glenn shunt operation at the age of 3 was completed.  This procedure allowed her heart to pump in a completely different way to allow her to live. During this time, we spent several weeks at a time in the Royal Brompton Hospital in London. We had our son, Samuel, who was about 2-year-old at the time and need to ensure he was catered for with his Grandparents, so we could live and sleep at the hospital.

We thought that we were through the worst of it, and everything was going to be rosy from then on.  When Caitlin was four, she suffered her first stroke to the left side of her brain which took away the use of her right-hand side, her dominant side. This is a risk that can happen when someone has the procedure Caitlin had. Again, this just added to our anxiety and worry and just kept on taking us down to lower depths of despair. Caitlin was now under the Evelina hospital for her neurology problems and the Royal Brompton hospital for her heart condition. This meant that as well as pressures from work and pressures from home we were managing regular visits to specialist hospitals for my daughter, this was extremely difficult. Things were well for several years and then in 2018 Caitlin had her second stroke. This led to us spend more long periods in hospital. This stroke identified problems with her heart, whereby it was stopping for up to 12 seconds at a time at night when she was sleeping. One time when this happened, a clot formed in her heart, and this is what has caused her to have the second stroke. She was fitted with a pacemaker which was meant to solve the problem she was having however it made no difference whatsoever. Caitlin's health went downhill from there to a point where she only had 83% oxygen and we were taken to a side room in the hospital and told that Caitlin was likely to die in the next few months and where would we like her to spend her last days. Again, this took us down as a family too completely new depths of despair, but within 24 hours a doctor, who was a specialist with pacemakers, saw Caitlin, on the off chance as he recognised her from many years of being in hospital and suggested a new type of pacemaker. Caitlin was rushed into surgery the next day where the new pacemaker was fitted and that coupled with different medication she was as well as could be expected with her condition at this time.

Over the following few years, Caitlin was placed on the heart transplant list and was waiting for the new ground-breaking DCD hearts.  (Which is a new way to harvest a donor).

On 13/06/2021 at 04:30 am, we received a call from GOSH (Great Ormond Street Hospital), saying they have a heart match. We were blue lighted to GOSH and at 3 pm Caitlin was taken down to theatre for her heart transplant.

The op lasted 18 hours, (I aged 20 years) but at 9 am the following morning Caitlin was taken to the CICU (Cardiac Intensive Care Unit) for her to recover. During her recovery her lungs collapsed, her kidneys packed up and we nearly lost her several time, but……..after 9 months in hospital, followed by 12 weeks rehabilitation, Caitlin is finally home, doing well with 97% oxygen and preparing for 6^th Form.

So why have I told this story?

In 2005 was the first time that I had contact with Police Benevolent fund who assisted us financially. I had been paying into the fund from the day I joined Kent police, but I never thought that I would use the organisation as life was good. What could possibly go wrong?

Being in hospital for long periods of time is a drain on you financially. Because we were still paying home bills, having to feed ourselves in London, get clothes, purchase items for our ablutions and spend lots on money on phone calls to family and friends as it was more expensive to use the phone back then. I called the Benevolent fund, explained our situation, and the response was absolutely fantastic. The Benevolent fund just asked some basic questions, what extra expenditure we had, how long we could expect to be there and where to pay the funds. Although for me, it felt a little like I go cap in hand when I asked for some support, they have never done anything to make me feel that way. They were helpful, understanding and wanting to assist in our time of despair. Just by the Fund assisting with our money expenditure took away a large amount of stress so that we could focus on Caitlin.  They asked for regular updates as to how we were, was there anything else we needed and just letting us know they were there.

I would urge every single officer to pay into the Benevolent Fund. None of us know what is round the corner and when we may be in financial need.

My family and I can’t thank the Benevolent Fund enough for how they supported us, treated us and made us feel when we were in the darkest of time.

Thank you.

Barry