IF you could have just one wish granted, what would it be?That was the difficult question facing an eight-year-old Ipswich girl who has to cope with a life-limiting illness.

IF you could have just one wish granted, what would it be?

That was the difficult question facing an eight-year-old Ipswich girl who has to cope with a life-limiting illness.

But for Siobhan Osbourne-Wales, a pupil at St Helen's Primary School who was diagnosed with cystic fibrosis when she was just five weeks old, the answer was easy. She wanted to spend a day as a nurse helping other people in hospital.

Her dream came true when the Rays of Sunshine children's charity arranged for her to spend the day shadowing a consultant paediatrician at a hospital in north London.

She performed a mock operation, learned how to resuscitate a model and was shown how to stitch up wounds.

Her mum, Natasha Wales, 29, of Nacton Road, told of her pride at watching her “remarkable little girl” forget about the illness she faces on a day-to-day basis and get stuck in, helping out.

“I am a very proud mum - it was really lovely to watch her forgetting about all the bad stuff and enjoy the day so much,” she said.

“She had a fabulous time, it was great fun and full of excitement for us. There were lots of things for her to do, the surgeon said how good she was and how quickly she picked it all up compared with his trainee doctors. At one point he even said they should take tips.”

Siobhan applied for her wish to come true in April, after a two-week stay in Ipswich Hospital, and when it came to it, she said it was everything she had hoped it would be.

She said: “I loved it. My favourite bit of the day was when I got to do the operation.

“I really want to be a nurse when I am older because I like helping other people. Whenever I am in hospital I always like to help the nurses out.”

Cystic fibrosis affects vital organs, making breathing and digestion difficult. Siobhan, like other suffers, faces a daily regime of medication and treatment as well as regular trips to the hospital for check ups.

She has two physiotherapy sessions at home and one at school every day, four doses of antibiotics each day and 12 tablets every time she eats anything, adding up to over 100 tablets a day.

Ms Wales added: “It is really time consuming for her but she is brilliant, I have never believed in wrapping her up in cotton wool, it would be the worst thing in the world for her to have to go through all this and then not be able to do the things every eight-year-old loves to do.

“She is a very brave eight-year-old. She has had to grow up fast and learn to self regulate. She has learnt to cope remarkably well with everything she has had to deal with.”

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