Special treat for organ-swap girl

Toddler Bethany Dawson who has been in intensive care for almost six months is returning home to Cannock tomorrow for a special birthday party.

Bethany will leave the hospital for the first time since she received a life-saving bowel and liver transplant in December at Birmingham Children's Hospital after being given just three months to live last year. She was born with a rare condition known as gastroschisis where her bowels were on the outside of her body.

Now her parents Nikki and Tim Dawson, from Whinyates Rise, in Cannock are preparing to bring their daughter home for her second birthday.

Despite the transplant Bethany has suffered a series of setbacks including a serious infection which sent her body into multi-organ failure. She has managed only a week on a hospital ward before having to go back into intensive care.

She is back on a ventilator machine now and is having regular blood transfusions and drugs.

On Sunday an ambulance and two nurses will escort Bethany to her grandparents home in South Close, Cannock where the family will celebrate the milestone. The celebration will be a joint party for Bethany and her three-year-old sister Katelyn.

Mum Nikki praised the efforts of Birmingham Children's Hospital staff saying: "They have been brilliant and this wouldn't have been possible without their support.

"Bethany is absolutely beautiful really healthy and well in herself its just little niggly things that keep going wrong. Her birthday last year was such a big thing to be coming home but this year it is even bigger."