WE are reaching the end of a year that has challenged us in ways we could barely have imagined when the clock struck midnight at the start of 2020. For most of us, this week would normally be busy with last-minute present buying, coordinating family travel plans, or digging out the pasting table and fold-up chairs for a cramped, but lively, Christmas dinner. Instead, many of us are preparing for what will be a Christmas like no other. And some, who would normally be with loved ones, will be alone. I know how hard that is going to be. After the stresses and strains of this year, I am as desperate as everyone else to spend time with my family over Christmas but sadly, with the virus still posing such a threat - and a new, faster spreading strain having been identified - we are all having to plan differently.
Tear-jerking moment brave Scots boy leaves hospital for first time ever to spend Christmas at home
Oscar Edgar waved goodbye to the hospital he has called home since birth – leaving the ward to the cheers of his medical team.
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Boy, 5, on ventilator for four years leaves hospital for first time to go home for Christmas
Oscar Edgar has spent his whole life in the Royal Hospital for Children in Glasgow and was on a ventilator for years, but now he s finally well enough to go home in time for Christmas
15:11, 18 DEC 2020
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Five-year-old Oscar s first Christmas at home a dream come true
Published
image captionOscar and his mum Megan were given a round of applause by hospital staff
A five-year-old boy who has spent most of his life on a ventilator has left hospital to spend his first Christmas at home.
Oscar Edgar has been a patient at the Royal Hospital for Children in Glasgow since his birth in April 2015.
He is unable to eat or speak and was ventilated until he was four-and-a-half due to an undiagnosed neurological, muscular and respiratory condition.
Oscar left the hospital on Thursday to applause from staff.
Submitting.
Oscar is unable to eat or speak, but understands everything around going on him and has recently learned to walk.
Picture: NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde
He has spent a “long and complex” five years in and out of hospital, but has made some progress and is now able to go home for Christmas for the first time.
His mother Megan, 23, said bringing her son home a week before Christmas was a “dream come true”, especially as there had been occasions when she believed she would lose him.
She added that she would miss the “amazing” staff who had worked with Oscar and supported her.