A BRAVE tot has battled her way out of hospital to make it home in time for the New Year.

Lois Jackson was starved of oxygen for six minutes at birth as she was delivered suddenly at home.

Even the slightest cough or cold can result in the two-year-old being admitted to hospital with a serious chest infection which could prove fatal.

Lois was admitted to the Royal Blackburn Hospital on Christmas Eve and was eventually allowed home just in time to celebrate the New Year with her mum Melony Ward, dad Darren Jackson, and sisters Emily, 14, and Holly 11.

Melony said: “We took her presents into hospital on Christmas Day and opened them for her and she was left presents off Father Christmas who visited the ward.

“She ended up in the high dep-endency unit one day when her heart rate dropped dramatically low.

“Lots of things go through your head when she gets admitted to hospital, and you just have to hope she survives.

“Around this time of year, when the weather changes, she bets a bit of a cough but because of her condition she gets a viral infection which turns into a serious chest infection.

“There hasn’t been a Christmas that she hasn’t been in hospital. We took pictures when she was born but we don’t like taking photographs of her with all the tubes in, so we don’t have any of her at Christmas.”

As a baby Lois was left fighting for her life and spent the first nine weeks of her life in intensive care. She was on a ventilator for three weeks before managing to breathe for herself.

She was given just 18 months to live when she was born, but has defied doctors predictions.

The youngster was diagnosed with dyskinetic cerebral palsy, a condition that affects muscle control and move-ment and is usually caused by an injury to the brain before, dur-ing or after birth.

Children with cerebral palsy have difficulties in controlling muscles and movements as they grow and develop.

Mum Melony, 34, of Chapel Street, Rishton, said her daughter is ‘a little fighter’.

“She knows people’s voices and can smile at people, but she will never walk or talk and has to be fed through a tube directly into her stomach.

“She is also registered blind and can only see light and dark.

“I have asked the consultant a number of times if this will be the last time we are going to see her, but she is a little fighter and seems to battle her way through. When the day comes, we will be devastated. Her siblings know it’s going to happen at some stage, we just prey that it doesn’t happen soon.”

Her mum and dad made the tough decision to sign a ‘do not resuscitate’ order.

Melony said: “It was heart breaking to sign, but it was felt that it would make her worse, rather than let her go. I still sit by her bedside and talk to her and say that if she wants to go, then she can.

“It has been a very rocky road, but it is nice when she’s home. She is an extra special little girl in our eyes.”

Her mum and dad hope that she will be able to start White Ash Special School in Oswaldtwistle in September if she is in good health.

She is unlikely to still be with us when she is five as she only has a short life expectancy.

“I am of course incredibly upset, but I am also happy that I have got to spend almost three years with her.”