Wednesday, December 10, 2008

Leo's Favourite Nurse, Sarah - Thank You Clic Sargent

This is Leo this afternoon, with his most favourite nurse in the world - Sarah has become a firm favourite and is the weekly Clic Sargent community nurse who keeps in touch, liaises with the hospital in-between our visits, answers all our mundane questions which she has no doubt been asked a million times, does Leo's weekly blood tests and flushing his central line, trained me how to flush and care for his line as well as played with Leo, kept him happy when we can't (or feel like we can't) and is generally just an amazing person who has helped all three of us through some tricky times.


As this photo clearly shows, Leo adores Sarah and although his line is coming out soon, she does keep in touch and there's some continuity with her as this next year may throw up all sorts of things which she can help with.


For those who raised all that cash in Spain as part of the King's College / Polaris World Fundraising events back in November, your contributions to Clic Sargent helps to pay for nurses just like Sarah to help children like Leo and families just like ours.


One final update, unfortunately the operation to remove Leo's central line has been put back to the day before Christmas Eve which does mean that Leo will be sore for a few days, but no doubt a few presents from Father Christmas will help take his mind off things!

Sunday, December 07, 2008

GRIM ... and Grimmer




Not the best English grammar but the best way to describe today...GRIM for my cousin Nicola - check out those pictures!!! Makes me cold just looking at them. By the way, that's not steam coming off lovely warm bath water... that's freezing cold muddy, yukky water. There's 8 miles of massive puddles (or lakes) of cold water like that, add in some minus degree overnight weather plus ice around the edges of the water, and what do you get? A fab fundraising effort and all for our lovely, brave son.
Thank you Nicola, for your sacrifice in all the training and also for organising such a unique fundraiser, and doing it regardless of the cold you've had. Leo, PJ and I are most appreciative to you for all your efforts and for helping us enable Leo to finish this year on a high after so many, many lows. Disneyland, Paris, here we come, and thanks Nicola so very much for all your efforts. And thanks for smiling in the pictures; you're very brave too and hope you warmed up quite quickly as the day went on.

So that was the GRIM; how about the 'grimmer'? How does trapping your finger in a fire door right by the hinges and having to endure yet another trip to the Bristol Children's Hospital A&E department sound? More X-rays and more pain-killers, and despite our initial fears that Leo had maybe fractured his finger or even had an open break due to the way his finger was, a big bandage later and all was well. We left the hospital and were able to make it to the lunch organised to congratulate Nicola on her own GRIM adventure and also meet with some other cousins including Donna and Regina, who has come over from Ireland to spend some time with us.

Thanks again for all your fundraising efforts and contributions from both sides of our families and our friends both here and in Spain. Please get in touch with Nicola nkdale@hotmail.com with regards to contributing or settling your pledges!
Leo is very special (yes, I am extremely biased), but he's been such a brave boy and so this trip to Disneyland will really help him to relax and enjoy life. Please know we are all so grateful to have tremendous support from all corners of the globe which is testament to just how special Leo is!!