Kindness to the Max

Leo is doing really well after a horrid evening of sickness last night as a result of this next cycle of chemo. Today, he's played basketball (if making PJ run around after the ball due to comedy throwing of the ball, anywhere but the basket!), plus played football with PJ trying lots of tricks to show off you never lose it (apparently!) So if Leo can tolerate his chemo like this each time, it'll be amazing. After our concerns on Thursday night about how to explain that he needs meds to make him well in the long-run, but that they'll make him feel grotty in the meantime, we're pretty pleased but tomorrow's another day.

On returning to Clic House this evening, I had the most amazing email from Dawn, one of our tremendous friends in Spain. We miss her family dearly and Leo constantly talks about Lexi, Dawn's lovely youngest daughter, with whom Leo goes to nursery. She emailed to touch base but also to say that her and our best friend Marie had been talking about doing something to raise money for Clic Sargent. Yes, if you know how to make me cry, that email was one way! How lovely that even though we're here in the UK, Leo's friends are still thinking about us and so much so, they'd like to do their bit to help.

This prompted me to set up a fund in Leo's name with Clic Sargent where all proceeds go towards funding the awesome work they do across the UK for families like ours with a child with cancer. Putting the fund in Leo's name just means we can all have a direct focus when we're raising funds for Clic.

Clic Sargent nurses and Clic play specialists deserve to become saints for all their help they provide families just like ours. Leo adores Paula at the Bristol Children's Hospital, who works as a Clic Sargent Play Therapist and she's over-worked as they're five staff down due to maternity and all sorts of other reasons. Children like Leo need to play and they need people like Paula who can help him to get his head around being unwell and how we need to treat his cancer. She has spent loads of time with us as a family and always had time for us despite being torn in so many directions.

So fundraising for Clic Sargent will certainly be one of the focal points for PJ and I to help give us some strength and feel as though we're doing at least something to help provide vital services for children just like Leo and their families.

It's going to take a week or so to set up the fund for Leo so once it's all set, I will post the details here and hope we can raise as much as possible for Clic Sargent. In fact, Richard Branson's Virgin has selected Clic as the Virgin London Marathon's official charity for 2010, so guess it's time to get our running shoes on.