Congratulations to Cerys Saunders!
After winning the Young Star of Courage in the 11-12 year category, Cerys Saunders was crowned the overall winner and credited for her amazing story. From birth Cerys has been a fighter with many trips to hospital both here in Jersey and Southampton. Her condition is two-fold, first Cardiomyopathy and Severe Pulmonary and Aortic Stenosis, otherwise she was clinically well and showed no physical characteristics of being unwell, even to this day this is still true. She was on medication to help reduce the fluid around her heart and the rest of her body. Over the years her condition has been carefully watched and to determine when it would be best to intervene and perform open heart surgery. In February/March last year specialists decided that it would be the right time for Cerys to undergo major open heart surgery. Cerys was 10 years old at the time and no one knew what the outcome would be and what this meant for her in the future.
The operation took 6 hours as a result of Cerys needing blood transfusions and extra treatment. She was kept heavily sedated to stop her from moving. Cerys drew on her resilience and inner strength, she even stopped pain relief after a couple of days, this was a surprise to the doctors. She was expected to be in Southampton for 2 weeks but her recovery was so rapid that she was ready to fly home after 7 days. She was off school for 8 weeks.
It is not really known what the long term means for Cerys but in the short and medium term, it looks bright and positive. Her resilience, toughness determination, bravery and her natural ability to just get on with things will help see her through any challenges that come her way. The Courage that she has shown has made her a very worthy winner of Variety’s Young Star of the Year, 2019.
The judging panel this year consisted of Lady Dalton, John Testori from Bambola Toymaster and Malcolm Lewis, Chairman of Longueville Manor. Alongside Cerys, 23 other youngsters were recognised throughout the event, including the ‘Young Star of Courage Age 6-10’ and ‘Young Star of Courage Age 11-12’, the Courage Category was split into 2 age groups this year, as there were 8 very strong nominations. Then we had the other categories, ‘Community’, ‘Carer’, ‘Sports’ and ‘Arts and Academia’. Winners of each category were awarded £500 worth of CI Co-operative vouchers, a trophy and certificate while all the finalists were awarded £100 worth of vouchers, medals and certificates.
