Three-year-old Georgia Sanders' birthday is on Christmas Day. That doesn't mean she gets half as many presents. She gets double.
It doesn't matter what the presents are as long as it's something to do with the movie Frozen.
A few days after she was born she was admitted to The Children's Hospital at Westmead with serious vomiting.
It took three weeks and two operations to find the two congenital obstructions in her intestine.
Now she's back at Westmead again. Georgia hasn't eaten for a week and her family's worst fears are the blockage is back. There are two drips running into her right arm but they don't prevent her from dancing to Let it Go when it is blasted out on her mum's phone.
Sophie Sanders, from Wollongong, said: "We left here [in January] thinking: 'Thank goodness, we are the lucky ones. We have got a healthy girl'. But we've had a hiccup and she's just displaying again all the same symptoms she had when she was a baby. We know though that [at Westmead] we couldn't be anywhere better."
Intensive care specialist Professor Nadia Badawi AM said if Georgia remains obstructed the surgeons might consider "going in" to have a look in a day or two.
"Any part of the body on which surgery is performed scars up and where we originally operated there might now be adhesions," she said.
"People don't realise quite how common birth defects are. About five per cent of all children in Australia are born with a birth defect. Most don't require surgery but there's a significant group who do. A lot of babies in the hospital are undergoing heart surgery every day."
Professor Badawi, named this year as one of Australia's 100 women of influence in the global category, has a wish list of her own.
Speaking in the middle of 2UE's Christmas appeal to raise funds for the hospital, she said: "What we need is money for the best and the newest intensive care equipment. We need ventilators which help provide breathing ability for babies that also don't harm their lungs. The government, of course, does supply us with equipment but we are always needing more. A ventilator costs about $80,000."
Asked how many she would like, she answered: "I would like at least another five. Please.
"We would also like an ultrasound machine to be able to monitor the blood flow and make sure it is going in all the right places. Small changes in blood pressure can be devastating. They are $140,000."
How many? "One, please. Just one. We are very modest."
"And we need money for research. If you teach someone to provide medical or nursing care or do good research then that's a lifetime of care. I work with the Cerebral Palsy Alliance and that is one of our big focuses – the early detection and intervention of disability. Australia now has one of the lowest rates of disability."
Christmas (or is it birthday) is coming early for Georgia. Her grandma was due to bring in a pair of Frozen shoes to hospital.
"They're for me, not for mummy," she helpfully explained.
2UE will broadcast A Gift from the Heart radioathon with X-Factor winner Marlisa expected from The Children's Hospital from 5am-6pm on Wednesday, November 19.
DEAR SANTA
Georgia Sanders' Christmas (and birthday) wishlist
Anything to do with Frozen
Westmead Hospital's wishlist
Five ventilators $80,000 each
Ultrasound machine $140,000
Ongoing funding for research
