Christian is still doing well, and his piano playing is improving, he recently played the piano at the church service for his grand father’s, wedding. Congratulations Bob and Annie!
Author Archives: Peter
A great donation for a fabulous cause
Thank you to the fantastic Lancashire foundation who donated £3,400 to pay for an amazing piece of kit (http://www.accuvein.com/) that makes inserting cannulas (needles for blood) much less painful for children. We have bought four of these wonderful machines together with Samuel’s Charity.
Thank you to Adam King for putting The Christian Blandford Fund forward for this.
Martin, from Samuel’s charity, explained the need for these very well…
We are looking to buy two more infrared scanners that shows where veins are so injections are made first time, every time.This is huge. No one likes injections but it can take 2,3,4 or sometimes more attempts to find a vein, especially after weeks or months of treatment. This is not only painful but very distressing for many kids (and adults!). Some medicines make you more sensitive so an injection feels more like being stabbed than a ‘sharp scratch’. Very often prolonged medicine treatment like Chemotherapy does this. Not to mention the psychological impact of worrying about frequent and painful injections.Now, because of support and donations, we bought one of these amazing pieces of equipment, an Accuview. Being able to get the vein first time cuts down the amount of pain and upset hugely. But that’s not all. Small kids have small veins and often you have to ‘root around’ (a medical term, apparently!) to find the right position. The Accuview solves this – they can get in the vein first time and no rooting around, seriously reducing the pain down.I spoke to the nurses yesterday and they all loved the Accuview, even the most senior nurses were raving about it!
This one piece of equipment has already made many kids on the ward much happier, and their days will not be as overshadowed with the worry of painful, repeated attempts for injections.
This doesn’t just help the children, though. As a parent I hate to see my kids go through pain. It was one of the hardest things I have ever done asking Samuel to have repeated and painful procedures, knowing it would hurt, and not being able to take the pain away or protect him. With Accuview we can go some way to doing this and that means so much to me.
Each one costs a few thousand pounds so we still need help as we need two more of these amazing machines for the other childrens wards at St Georges Hospital.
Posted in Blog, Fund Raising, Things We've Done. Tagged with Accuvein, Charity, donation, Lancashire foundation, Samuels Charity.
Christian’s new Hobby – Writing 3D Games
Christian’s latest hobby is game writing, you can try his latest games here.
Christmas gifts for the children at St George’s
We have had a great day handing out presents to the Children who are unfortunate enough to be at St George’s over Christmas. Christian was a fab Elf and we had lots of help from the wonderful staff at the hospital. Henry stepped in as official photographer and took some photos which are here. I have included a hi-res copy which parents can use for personal use as they wish, just press the download button on the photo you want.
Posted in Blog, Things We've Done. Tagged with cancer, children, Christmas, Father Christmas, gifts, Henry, kids, presents, Santa, St George's.
A Pianist and an Elf
As usual, we have bought a load of lovely presents for the children who are unfortunate enough to be staying at St George’s over Christmas. The Bowlers and the Hancox’s have been busy wrapping and the Elves has been limbering up and are ready to help Santa. There are more photos on ourFacebook page.
As you can see the Christian the Elf is keeping very healthy, he has been dancing less lately but has been getting into piano
Sam Tanner – Bournemouth half marathon
Sam is Christian’s Aunty and is running a half Marathon at Bournemouth marathon festival for the Christian Blandford Fund.
Here she is with Christian the day after he was born. Like all the members of our large family, Sam was very supportive through Christian’s illness and we are very grateful that on top of that she is putting herself through a rigorous training schedule and 21km of pain for our charity!
Please support her below.
Please show give encouragement and support on Facebook here
If you can not see Virgin Money Giving page, here is a link to it
Merry Christmas!
It is becoming an annual event, The Bowler and Hancox Families wrap up the presents and Peter, Henry and Christian pop over to St George’s as Santa and his two helpers. Today was very special with some really lovely children who seemed very happy with the visit. We hope they all get back to the comfort of their homes soon.
The photos are all here, we have made it so the photos are all downloadable in hi-res for the parents of the children that Santa saw.
Posted in Blog, Things We've Done. Tagged with cancer, children, Christmas, Father Christmas, Hospital, presents, remission, Santa, St George's.
An Amazing story of a bottle of 1990 Bollinger
I was very kindly given this bottle of Champagne by a friend before Christian was first diagnosed with cancer. When Christian got ill, the bottle sat in the cellar as we waited for something to celebrate.
We decided that when he reached 5 years in remission, which is when you’re given the all clear, we would open it and enjoy it. That plan was obviously delayed when the cancer relapsed and I must admit that I wondered if the Champagne would ever get drunk.
A couple of years ago, our house was broken into and the burglars went off with most of my photographic equipment, some of Claudia’s jewelry and a few of bottles of wine, including this one.
If I was a superstitious person I may have suspected the bottle was unlucky, but I would have been quite wrong.
It was listed in the police report along with everything else that was taken. A couple of weeks later one of the police officers who had read the report was searching a suspects flat in South East London on a completely different inquiry. When he open the fridge he noticed a bottle of 1990 Bollinger and quickly worked out it probably wasn’t theirs. The suspects’ finger prints matched ones taken from our property and the guys were charged and proven guilty a few months later.
Unfortunately most of our goods were never returned but this bottle of champagne came back to us.
This September, Christian reached his 5 years in remission, something he had a one in 20 chance of achieving and we finally popped open the bottle.
I must say, it was delicious.
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Val’s Jump
Thank you very much to the (slightly crazy) Val Brand who jumped out of a plane for the Christian Blandford Fund. She raised over £750 which is an amazing achievement.
Here she is…
September 2012
Thank you to Ava and Ellis McNally who made some lovely bracelets to sell at school and raised nearly £100 for the Christian Blandford fund. They were great bracelets and you are lovely girls!
Darren’s Iron Man
Darren Bowler, one of our trustees was once known as “the fat controller”. Amazingly, he is doing an incredible iron man event in Switzerland in a couple of weeks. It involves a 3.8k swim (in the lake with 2500 others) , 180km cycle (through the Alps) and finally he has to run a full marathon. He is doing this quite ridiculous event (which sounds to me like 12 hours of utter pain) all to Aid the Christian Blandford Fund.
Here he is with another Trustee Amy and Rachel from St George’s
This is what Darren writes…
I’ve bored most of you before about my triathlons but this time the mid life lycra crisis has spiraled out of control !!! . On July 15th I’m attempting IRONMAN ZURICH . That’s a ridonkulus 3.8k swim (in the lake with 2500 other idiots!) , 180km cycle (apparently there are a few hills..ie the alps !) followed by the small matter of a marathon . My target is to complete it in 14 hours .
The good news is that I’m not asking for your hard earned cash to donate to some big charity where you are never really sure how/where your money is spent ….because I’m actually going to be spending the money myself ! . No not on a new spanking carbon bike . I am one of the trustees of the Christian Blandford fund and my focus has been spending the cash we have raised . The aim of the Christian Blandford fund is to improve the comfort of children and their families, particularly those affected by cancer, during prolonged stays in local NHS hospitals .
Over the last couple of years we have been able to make a real difference . A couple of months ago we saw the opening of a paediatric patients playground at St Georges hospital Tooting . The CBF contributed 30k to the cost of providing a real oasis for kids during their say in hospital . We have funded parents lounge , ultrasound machines to reduce the pain of frequent injections for kids , new sofabeds for parents who spend weeks…even months in hospital with there kids ,laptops and kindles for the kids to use ….the list goes on and on so please check out the site for all the details .
Please support me in my fundraising safe in the knowledge that every penny donated (we have NO costs) will be spent wisely and will make a real difference to kids and there parents during prolonged hospital visits .
Cheers,
Darren
The Virgin Money Giving page is here
Darren completed this grueling event in 14 hours ours, here is what he writes…
I just wanted to say a big thanks to each and every one of you for your support for my Ironman attempt on Sunday .
My day started at 7am with a gentle hour and a half swim . Then it got difficult ! …. The 7 1/2 hours on the bike was a
real slog . Hampered by rain ,wind and even hail, it was fair to say morale was fairly low at times . 180km later I was desperate
to get off the bike…. even if it did mean starting a marathon . I managed just over 2 hours for the first half but then ran out
of steam and finished the run in 4:45 . My target for completing the Ironman was 14 hours …..I finished in 14 hours and 40 seconds ! .
Your support and generosity helped keep me going on the day and thanks again from all of us at the Christian Blandford fund . So far
a staggering £12,500 has been raised . Mark my word every penny will be wisely spent ! .
All the very best Darren
Please feel free to give Darren encouragement with Facebook Comments here and like this page on facebook.
