Youngster selling flowers to help nana get well again

When seven-year-old Amanda Kinzett saw her nana in pain she simply wanted to help.

"She had never seen me like that," her nana, Dawn Bedingfield, said as she described the day she had eaten something which the condition she was long been suffering from - para-oesophageal hernia - reacted to.

"It scared her," Mrs Bedingfield said.

"She has said to me 'I hope you don't die nana'."

Mrs Bedingfield said her granddaughter, one of 10 grandchildren she and husband Jim are very proud of, likely overheard a conversation she was having about the excess they would have to come up with to get an operation carried out through a medical insurance policy they had.

It was a policy they nearly let go due to the cost of maintaining it, but she is now pleased they did not.

She was discussing the $1000 they had to put toward the cost of the operation which is set to be carried out in about a fortnight's time.

It was a sum she said they could have come up with but her granddaughter was not going to have any of that.

"She decided to step in and said 'I want to do this for you nana'."

Which the Napier youngster has been doing over the past few days outside nana's house in Church Rd, Taradale.

She has been selling lilies which her grandparents grow and her efforts have overwhelmed her nana and mum Julie.

Amanda has raised about $600 "to help pay for it".

She said people had stopped and handed out praise as well as a few dollars for some Christmas flowers.

"They've said 'well done' and things like that," Amanda said.

"I just want to see nana be well again - sometimes she can't even go out shopping."

Mrs Bedingfield has been enduring bouts of intense pain in recent times as the para-oesophageal hernia had effectively forced her stomach up under her heart - making eating potentially threatening.

A para-oesophageal hernia is also known as a hiatal hernia, where a portion of the stomach slides through the diaphragm and into the chest.

It can cause symptoms of pain, heartburn, reflux, and difficulty swallowing food and sometimes it causes food or even liquids to become stuck as they go down the oesophagus.

"I'm so proud of her," Mrs Bedingfield said.

"It is quite amazing - she has taken it upon herself to do this."

She said it was a very special and memorable touch of Christmas for her and the whole family.

Her mother Julie was also very proud.

"She was so adamant she wanted to help," she said, adding that Amanda spent pretty well all of her Christmas Eve selling the flowers and even after getting home simply said she wanted to go back again and sell some more.

"Yup, I will," was Amanda's take on that part of it.