[{"c":"This Sunday, our friend Jamie Williams will be lining up at the start of the London Marathon to run 26.2 miles for The Christian Blandford Fund! Jamie with Pete and Rob and the CBF TriathlonJamie has been training hard for months, long runs in all weathers, early mornings, and the kind of quiet dedication that doesn’t always make it onto social media but absolutely makes it to the finish line. He’s in great shape and targeting a time of around 3:20 to 3:25, which for those of you who don’t run marathons (most of us), is seriously impressive. The support so far has been incredible. At the time of writing, Jamie’s fundraising page has raised £3,450 towards a £4,000 target, that’s 86% of the way there, and every penny goes directly towards supporting children and families during long stays in NHS hospitals. If you haven’t yet had the chance to donate, or if you’d like to add a little more, there’s still time, and it really does make a difference. And if you’re a UK taxpayer, please do remember to tick the Gift Aid box (it adds 25% at no extra cost to you). Sponsor Jamie here We asked Jamie for a quick update ahead of the big day, and in typical fashion he mentioned that carb-loading at 8g per kg of bodyweight per day is “quite challenging”which we think translates to an awful lot of pasta. So from all of us at The Christian Blandford Fund: good luck, Jamie. We’ll be cheering you on every step of the way. With love, Peter and Claudia","d":"2026-04-24","t":"Good luck in the London Marathon Jamie","u":"/2026/04/24/good-luck-in-the-london-marathon-jamie/"},{"c":"We’d love you to join us for something a little special this spring… On Sunday 10th May 2026, Christian will be performing an evening of Romantic piano works at Oxted United Reformed Church, joined by the very talented Sophia Short. It’s going to be a relaxed, informal night, and we hope a genuinely lovely one, as well as a chance to raise some much-needed funds for children and families spending long stretches in hospital. Christian Blandford The programme features music by Rachmaninoff, Debussy and Scriabin, as well as a number of Christian’s own compositions. If you’ve heard his albums (The Waves and Cloud Étude are both on streaming services, if you haven’t), you’ll know exactly what kind of evening to expect. Sophia Short Sophia studied Music at St Peter’s College, Oxford, where she was awarded the Jacob Barnes Instrumental Scholarship. A former scholar of Steinway \u0026 Sons, she has performed solo recitals at Steinway Hall London (most recently in December 2025) and as a soloist at Cadogan Hall in Chelsea. She currently works at Warner Music and is, we’re told, also training for a marathon, which puts the rest of us to shame. The Concert The concert starts at 6:00pm. Entry is free, everyone is truly welcome whatever they are able to give, and we want to make the evening as accessible as possible, particularly for young people. Suggested donations for the concert: Under 25s: £10 Adults: £20 or more Please don’t let those figures put anyone off – whatever you are able to give is genuinely appreciated. If you can Gift Aid your donation, that adds a little extra to the fund at no cost to you. Supper at Kinjo From 7:30pm, anyone who’d like to continue the evening is warmly invited to join us for supper at Kinjo, one of Oxted’s best restaurants. It serves excellent Japanese food (the black cod is quite something), and our good friend Graham Ford, co-owner, has created a delicious menu for us which will include some of their signature dishes for the evening. Good food, good company, and a brilliant way to round off the night. Please make two separate payments if you are joining us for supper and the concert: 1. £40 to Kinjo – paid directly to the restaurant on the night. This covers your supper and welcome drink and goes entirely to the restaurant. Places are limited, so please do let us know as soon as you can if you’d like to join us. 2. Recommended £50 minimum donation to The Christian Blandford Fund – made separately via the donate button below. This is the charitable donation and goes entirely to supporting children and families in hospital. This can be Gift Aided. Together that’s £90 per person for the concert and supper. We are doing it this way in order to qualify for gift aid. If you are in a position to give more than £50 to the Fund, it is always incredibly gratefully received. Why This Matters Many of you have been with us for years, and you know better than anyone why this matters. We have some exciting projects coming up over the next year, and every contribution this evening will make a real and direct difference to children who are seriously ill and the families going through it alongside them. We are incredibly grateful, as always. Booking If you’d like to join us for the recital, please make a donation to the fund, and then fill in the short form below so that we can reserve your place. We would also love for you to join us for the fun supper at Kinjo afterwards, please indicate that on the form too, as places are very limited. We have found, time and again, that when people are given the chance to be generous, they really are. Whether you join us for the concert, the supper, or both… thank you. It means more than we can say. Donate here Book your place","d":"2026-03-22","t":"Live Piano Music, a Japanese Supper, and a Good Cause – Sunday 10th May 2026","u":"/2026/03/22/live-piano-music-a-japanese-supper-and-a-good-cause-sunday-10th-may-2026/"},{"c":"Jamie Williams 2026 London Marathon Jamie is running the London Marathon this year and we are delighted that he has chosen to raise money for The Christian Blandford Fund. Jamie with Pete and Rob and the CBF Triathlon Support Jamie’s run If you are able to support Jamie’s London Marathon challenge, please consider making a donation below. £4,306.25 raised so far towards a £4,000 target 108% of target reached If you are a UK taxpayer, please remember to tick the Gift Aid box when donating. This increases your donation by 25% at no extra cost. As many of you will know, our charity helps improve the comfort of children and their families during long stays in NHS hospitals, particularly those undergoing cancer treatment. Every donation helps make what can be an incredibly difficult time a little easier for families. We are a very efficient charity, with very little spent on administration or expenses, so you can be confident that your generosity will go directly towards making a real difference. Thank you to Jamie for choosing to support The Christian Blandford Fund, and thank you for supporting both Jamie and our charity. Supporters so far (please let us know if you would prefer to remain anonymous) The Blandfords – £250 Katie – £62.50 John – £125 Joshua – £62.50 Sophie – £62.50 James – £1,250 A P – £25 Tom – £125 Lydia – £62.50 Hannah – £250 Grant – £62.50 Rostislav – £125 Nick – £62.50 Graham – £312.50 Adam – £62.50 Jacky – £50 Anonymous – £312.50 Daniel – £187.50 Aleksander – £550 Louis – £25 Janette – £125 Mark – £93.75 Talyn – £62.50 A message from Jamie Thank you so much to all of the generous sponsors so far, and future sponsors. Training has been going well and I’m hopeful that I’ll be able to complete the marathon course in 3:20-3:25. The taper over the last couple of weeks has been a welcome respite to the long training runs and, for the first time, I’m properly carb-loading; it turns out eating 8g per kg of bodyweight per day is quite challenging in the days leading up to the marathon! See you on the other side! Thank you Your support means a great deal both to Jamie and to the children and families helped by The Christian Blandford Fund.","d":"","t":"Jamie’s 2026 London Marathon","u":"/jamie-marathon-26/"},{"c":"Photos from our visit to St George’s Hospital with Father Christmas in December 2025, taken by Will Fealey. Patients and their families are welcome to download the full-size versions for printing and sharing. You can read about the day in Merry Christmas 2025.","d":"","t":"Father Christmas at St George's 2025","u":"/galleries/2025-santa/"},{"c":"This year marked 15 years since our very first visit to St George’s Hospital with Father Christmas, a tradition we have been proud to continue every year since, apart from the Covid period which brought its own virtual adventures! Once again, it was a truly special day, bringing festive cheer, smiles, and a little bit of Christmas magic to children and their families on the wards. We are incredibly grateful to all the play specialists who helped make the day so memorable, especially Charlotte, who came around with us and was super efficent with presents, she made a fantastic elf! A huge thank you to Will Fealey, one of our trustees, who very kindly came along and captured these moments in photographs, creating memories that families can keep and treasure. You can download hi res versions of the photos without watermarks using the link under each photo. Thank you to Darren Bowler and my lovely daughter Jessica Blandford for choosing and wrapping presents, they all went down very well. As always, our heartfelt thanks go to everyone at St George’s for their warmth, support, and dedication to the children and families in their care. Download hi-resDownload hi-resDownload hi-resDownload hi-resDownload hi-resDownload hi-resDownload hi-resDownload hi-resDownload hi-resDownload hi-resDownload hi-resDownload hi-resDownload hi-resDownload hi-resDownload hi-resDownload hi-resDownload hi-resDownload hi-resDownload hi-resDownload hi-resDownload hi-resDownload hi-resDownload hi-res","d":"2025-12-24","t":"Merry Christmas 2025!","u":"/2025/12/24/merry-christmas-2025/"},{"c":"We were been blown away last month by not one, but two fantastic fundraising golf events organised in support of The Christian Blandford Fund – each one full of laughter, generosity, and community spirit. The Stevens Golf Day – £7,102 Raised! On a glorious day in Kent, Annie and Adrian Stevens opened their home and their hearts to host a brilliant CBF Golf Day. With 44 golfers on the course and 84 people sitting down for lunch, it was a day to remember. A huge thank you to Annie, who did an extraordinary amount of work behind the scenes to make the day run so smoothly, and to Toby, who wrangled the golfers and the course with military precision. There were some serious golf skills on show – congrats to Max Kibblewhite, our overall winner, and to Paul Smith and Mark Gilbey for nearest-the-pin honours. From raffle tickets and puddings to lake ball rescues, every little detail added up to a stunning £7,102 raised for the charity. You can see photos from the day here: Stevens Golf Day Gallery The Coombe Hill Golf Day – £10,000 Raised! Not to be outdone, our very own trustee Darren Bowler hosted a spectacular charity golf day at the beautiful Coombe Hill Golf Club. The course was challenging, the weather held, and the generosity was overwhelming. Thanks to Darren’s efforts—and the incredible support from players and the club—the event raised a phenomenal £10,000 for the Christian Blandford Fund. We’re so grateful to Darren, Coombe hill Golf Club and everyone involved in making the day such a success. Making a Real Difference Between these two events alone, an amazing £17,102 has been raised. That’s money going directly to help children in hospital and their families—whether it’s making a hospital environment feel less scary, or bringing a smile to a child facing treatment. To Annie, Adrian, Darren, every single golfer, donor, raffle ticket buyer, pudding-maker and lake-ball-fisher—thank you. You’ve made a real difference, and we are incredibly grateful. And yes… next year is already being talked about. We can’t wait. With love, The Blandford Family and all of us at The Christian Blandford Fund ⸻","d":"2025-10-17","t":"Two Incredible Golf Days, One Amazing Cause – Thank You!","u":"/2025/10/17/two-incredible-golf-days-one-amazing-cause-thank-you/"},{"c":"We had another magical day at St George’s Hospital, bringing some festive cheer and handing out presents to the children spending Christmas in hospital this year. You can see all the photos from the day here. Patients and their families can download high-resolution versions for printing and sharing. A huge thank you to Tracey and her amazing team of play specialists for helping us prepare and making the day run smoothly. We’re also incredibly grateful to Chloe and Hayley, who joined us on the wards to spread joy alongside Father Christmas. Our incredible trustees, Darren and Amy, worked tirelessly to choose and wrap the perfect presents for the children. This year, we were lucky to have the talented Annie Stevens as our photographer, and as you can see, she captured the day beautifully. Thank you, Annie, for your wonderful work! Once again, I am in awe of the dedication, kindness, and love shown by the staff at St George’s Hospital. You continue to go above and beyond, often in challenging circumstances, and it’s an inspiration to us all. If you’d like to help us bring more smiles to children and families at St George’s, please consider making a donation or think of us if you’re planning a fundraising event this year. Every contribution makes a difference. Merry Christmas from all of us at The Christian Blandford Fund! 🎄✨ www.christianblandford.com www.christianblandford.com www.christianblandford.com www.christianblandford.com www.christianblandford.com www.christianblandford.com www.christianblandford.com","d":"2024-12-23","t":"Merry Christmas from The Christian Blandford Fund","u":"/2024/12/23/merry-christmas-from-the-christian-blandford-fund-2/"},{"c":"We are very proud to annouce that Christian has released a beautiful album of piano music all written and performed by him. The Waves by Christian Blandford is available on all major streaming services and can be bought on i-tunes. Please take a listen!","d":"2024-05-28","t":"The Waves by Christian Blandford","u":"/2024/05/28/the-waves-by-christian-blandford/"},{"c":"Back in 2019, some Tesla owners in the UK received Mini Teslas as part of a referral program from Tesla. Some owners generously decided to donate those cars to local hospitals. The community of Tesla owners, led by Tesla Owners UK, got together to raise money for more cars. Even Elon Musk got involved with a donation from the Elon foundation and Radio Flyer who produce the cars gave a generous dicount. As the money from the group came in, the Christian Blandford Fund offered to help in order to collect and the manage the funds and claim gift aid on the donations. Will Fealey, the president of Tesla owners UK, joined the CBF as a trustee. Since then every single children’s hospital in the UK has been offered one and most have accepted. They are now being used all around the country. ITV ran a story about it this week about one of the many hospitals who are using them… https://www.facebook.com/TeslaOwnersUK/videos/3724751274428825/   Deryn Harvey from Tesla owners UK has managed the program with impressive efficiency, not only providing the cars but looking after them as they need work over the years. To quote Deryn – “TOUK have our own repair/refurb facility. Some of the originals are developing faults and Pete Smoothy and Nick Goldring take them into our very own “repair workshop.” Where a hospital has one which is very well used we use the parts and supply a brand new one to the hospital. Here are some ready to go out again.” The Christian Blandford Fund are delighted to have been able to help and play a small part in this incredible project. We’d like to thank Tesla Owners UK, particularly Will, Deryn, Pete and Nick for not only making this happen but for maintaining the project during the many inevitable ups and downs. We’d also like to thank all those who donated over the years and RadioFlyer, Elon Musk, and all the incredible NHS staff who helped get the cars onto the wards so they could help make a difference.","d":"2024-03-05","t":"Mini Teslas for Hospitals in the UK","u":"/2024/03/05/mini-teslas-for-hospitals-in-the-uk/"},{"c":"We had an amazing day at St George’s Hospital handing out presents to the children who are unlucky enough to be in hospital this time of year. You can see all the photos here and patients and familes can download hi res versions for printing and sharing. Thank you so much to Tracey and her team of play specialists who helped us prepare and to Janine and Hayley who came around the wards with us. As usual our wonderful trustees Darren and Amy chose and wrapped the presents and this year Darren stepped in as the photographer and as you can see did a fabulous job. As usual I was blown away by the energy, dilligence and love from all of the staff at St George’s. Thank you for all the effort you put in, often under difficult circumstances. Merry Christmas from all of us at The Christian Blandford Fund.","d":"2023-12-22","t":"Father Christmas at St George’s 2023","u":"/2023/12/22/father-christmas-at-st-georges-2023/"},{"c":"It was wonderful being back at St George’s for a father Christmas visit after 2 years away! www.christianblandford.com   We have put the photos up for friends and families of the patients to download here Thank you to our trusty trustees Darren and Amy and their families for wrapping all the presents. Thank you to lovely Annie Stevens for stepping in as the photographer at the last minute, you did a great job! Thank you to the play specialists at St George’s for making it happen, particularly Hazel who was incredible all day. Finally and mostly, thank you to all the staff at St George’s for the work you do and the energy you put into your day. I am always amazed, touched and humbled by the passion I see from every member of staff. You are all overworked, you are all under appreciated and you are all incredible. The love and compassion you have for your patients is a pleasure to witness. Merry Christmas and lots of love from everybody at The Christian Blandford Fund.","d":"2022-12-23","t":"Father Christmas at St George’s 2022","u":"/2022/12/23/father-christmas-at-st-georges-2022/"},{"c":"Donate Now Opens CAF Donate in a new tab. Single or regular gifts, with Gift Aid if you are a UK taxpayer. Thank you for choosing to donate to the Christian Blandford fund, you can click the button above to make an online payment or a regular payment. To set up a fund raising page for an event please use the fund raise link and set it up on Just Giving. If you need logos for your page there are versions here . We are very careful how we spend your money, nobody is paid for their time and even administration expenses are negligible. We would appreciate it if you could forward your confirmation e-mail to peter@christianblandford.com, particularly if it is to sponsor or support a particular event or person. Thanks again, Peter and Claudia Blandford Registered Charity number – 1139614","d":"","t":"Donate Here","u":"/donate-here/"},{"c":"Brenda Trenowden Brenda Trenowden and her wonderful husband Mark (Trend) have been one of Peter and Claudia’s closest friends since we were all young and fun as new parents in Clapham. They were very loving and supportive all those years ago when Christian was ill, frequently visiting us at The Royal Marsden and St George’s, often bringing some delicious soup, and always a bottle of wine. We all remained great friends and they moved to Sevenoaks not long after us, following that well trodden path from Nappy Valley to Kent life. While Trend looked after the home and their wonderful kids, Teddy and India, Brenda’s career flourished. Brenda believed in her work and her passion led her not only to personal success, but to have genuine influence in the lives of many others. Trend’s importance in this success can not be underemphasised, there is a great interview on the BBC i-player where Brenda called Trend, “The chief household officer”, and I know how much Brenda depended on Trend’s perpetual support. Brenda has been one of the UK’s most prominent diversity champions having been chair of the 30% club from 2015 to 2018. During her tenure, Brenda set the deadline for the campaign’s initial aim of women making up 30% of FTSE 100 boards. In 2018 she was awarded a CBE for services to the financial sector and gender equality. Brenda went on to be a partner at PWC, a trustee of The Royal Marsden and the senior independent Director on the England and Wales Cricket Board, I love how this position demonstrates how Brenda could walk the walk and well as talking it! The extraordinary thing is that much of what Brenda achieved, she achieved while coping with a horrible and rare form of cancer which was diagnosed in 2016. While many of us would have folded and reverted into a spiral of self pity, Brenda didn’t. She worked, she raised her family, she supported others, she partied and she lived her life. Brenda and Trend chronicled her journey in her blog Brenda won’t back down, it remains as a fitting testament to a truly wonderful person. Brenda’s influence reached far and wide, but also close to home. Her passion, work ethic and ambition fed through to Teddy and India who, as well as being lovely human beings, are both smart, driven and have achieved excellent academic results. Very few people leave this world inspiring and improving the lives of as many people as Brenda has. We are touched, honoured and humbled that Trend has decided that all donations in lieu of flowers should be given to The Christian Blandford Fund. Thank you Trend, Teddy and India, and thank you Brenda, for fitting so much into an unjustly short number of years. Brenda Trenowden Brenda Trenowden and her wonderful husband Mark (Trend) have been one of Peter and Claudia’s closest friends since we were all young and fun as new parents in Clapham. They were very loving and supportive all those years ago when Christian was ill, frequently visiting us at The Royal Marsden and St George’s, often bringing some delicious soup, and always a bottle of wine. We all remained great friends and they moved to Sevenoaks not long after us, following that well trodden path from Nappy Valley to Kent life. While Trend looked after the home and their wonderful kids, Teddy and India, Brenda’s career flourished. Brenda believed in her work and her passion led her not only to personal success, but to have genuine influence in the lives of many others. Trend’s importance in this success can not be underemphasised, there is a great interview on the BBC i-player where Brenda called Trend, “The chief household officer”, and I know how much Brenda depended on Trend’s perpetual support. Brenda has been one of the UK’s most prominent diversity champions having been chair of the 30% club from 2015 to 2018. During her tenure, Brenda set the deadline for the campaign’s initial aim of women making up 30% of FTSE 100 boards. In 2018 she was awarded a CBE for services to the financial sector and gender equality. Brenda went on to be a partner at PWC, a trustee of The Royal Marsden and the senior independent Director on the England and Wales Cricket Board, I love how this position demonstrates how Brenda could walk the walk and well as talking it! The extraordinary thing is that much of what Brenda achieved, she achieved while coping with a horrible and rare form of cancer which was diagnosed in 2016. While many of us would have folded and reverted into a spiral of self pity, Brenda didn’t. She worked, she raised her family, she supported others, she partied and she lived her life. Brenda and Trend chronicled her journey in her blog Brenda won’t back down, it remains as a fitting testament to a truly wonderful person. Brenda’s influence reached far and wide, but also close to home. Her passion, work ethic and ambition fed through to Teddy and India who, as well as being lovely human beings, are both smart, driven and have achieved excellent academic results. Very few people leave this world inspiring and improving the lives of as many people as Brenda has. We are touched, honoured and humbled that Trend has decided that all donations in lieu of flowers should be given to The Christian Blandford Fund. Thank you Trend, Teddy and India, and thank you Brenda, for fitting so much into an unjustly short number of years.","d":"2022-09-06","t":"Goodbye Brenda","u":"/2022/09/06/goodbye-brenda/"},{"c":"We are very lucky to have been gifted an amazing item by Bob Ford and Greg Williams photography. This is usually a money can’t buy item so we have decided to list it on e-bay with 100% of the proceeds going to The Christian Blandford Fund. If you know anybody who would be interested please share it with them. We would also really appreciate it if you could share this on social media as we have 5 days to generate as much interest (and as many bids) as possible. Daniel Craig’s Bond by Greg Williams is a limited edition, money-can’t-buy celebration of Daniel’s incredible 15 year tenure in the role of James Bond, with exclusive photographs (mostly never seen before), spanning from Daniel Craig’s original screen test through to his final poster shoot on No Time To Die. The book represents a comprehensive review of the hundreds of days Greg spent on the James Bond sets and the result is a highly personal and candid insight into Daniel Craig’s portrayal of 007. Limited to 1,000 hand numbered copies and made possible with the support of Omega.   EBAY LINK HERE","d":"2021-12-15","t":"Incredible gift for James Bond Fans! Only 1000 ever made.","u":"/2021/12/15/incredible-gift-for-james-bond-fans-only-1000-ever-made/"},{"c":"Claudia hosted a fantastic Christmas fair yesterday which everybody enjoyed and appears to have been even more successful in fund raising than previous years. The raffle prizes were bigger and better than ever so we have decided to sell the last few remaining tickets online to allow people who did not attend a chance to win. All the prizes were donated by wonderful supporters which means 100% of the money given will go to the charity. Donate £20 here to get 5 chances to win one of these amazing prizes – you can donate more for more chances! A luxury beauty hamper From Kat Farmer from Does My Bum Look 40? – worth £1500 An incredible unique hand blown glass artwork from the very talented Anthony Scala from his impressive Turbulence Collection. Similar pieces fetch £1250 at the Vessel Gallery in Notting Hill. For James Bond fans! – A stunning studio stamped limited edition Bond print (chosen by the winner from here). This will be signed by the famous photographer Greg Williams who has been the official Bond photographer for all of Daniel Craig’s 15 year tenure. Valued at £550 without the signature. Thank you Bob Ford and Greg Williams for your generosity. A beautiful ladies watch from Swiss brand Frederique Constant worth £750, thank you Mark Robinson and Frederique Constant UK A stunning hand knitted scarf by Chloe Gustard Candle from Space NK Candle from Mint Velvet Champagne from Waitrose Voucher from Sweaty Betty Sevenoaks, thank you to the manager Hazel brown Framed Sevenoaks print by the artist Susie West £50 voucher from The Bull Inn Limpsfield thanks to the manager Danny Parish Voucher from Cryojuvinate, thank you to the managing director Ruth Hyde Archers Express cleaning voucher Cook Sevenoaks voucher SPN fitness Gift Card for 10 free studio classes, thank you to Jaime Cooke Generous gifts from the stall holders on the day including Coco Cuscino La Península use VIP access code – ISKEOM The Square Salon in Riverhead Rock \u0026 Lily Moho Jewellery Passionate about Pashminas Nourish by Naomi www.diylampshadekits.co.uk Bella De Luca’s fabulous lamp shade kits soon to be available online Thank you to the wonderful stall holders who came and maintained energy and enthusiasm all day, despite spending all of it on their feet! If you haven’t bought raffle tickets yet, please do, we are hoping this will be our most successful raffle ever! You can download hi-res versions of these photos without watermarks here Due to COVID our regular stall holder CrashBangKids was unable to attend the fair. Lulu has very kindly set up a code CHRISTIANB on her website. This allows you free postage and gives The CB Fund 10%.","d":"2021-11-26","t":"Claudia’s Christmas Fair","u":"/2021/11/26/claudias-christmas-fair/"},{"c":"It’s been a busy few months at The CBF. We have been finalising a very exciting project that we have been working on for the last 2 years. The fabulous news is that we effectuated a new Clinical Psychologist for the teenagers and young adults at The Royal Marsden Hospital . The psychology team at the hospital provide support for the TYA’s and have seen a huge increase in referrals in the last year, particularly during the COVID-19 pandemic. They were seriously overstretched and did not have the capacity to offer the psychological support that the unfortunate teenagers seriously needed during cancer treatment. The new member of staff will be part of the outreach program so will help teenagers and young adults at other hospitals in the South East including St George’s. This is not something that The CBF would normally support as we try to avoid financing projects which we feel should be paid for by the NHS. We tend to focus on the extras that are not covered by central government funds. Claudia was the main driver for this project and persuaded the rest of the trustees that, although it is expensive, it very much fits our mandate to improve lives of children and their families during prolonged stays in hospital. We are delighted that this new resource is now in place and would not have happened without our financial help. Our contribution of £45,752 will pay for the psychologist for a year. After this time we hope and expect their value to have been demonstrated and the psychologist to be retained through hospital funds. We have also started to prepare for Claudia’s terrific biennial Christmas Fair! Today we received our first donation for the raffle – a stunning print of The Stag Theatre in Sevenoaks by the artist Susie West. Susie is an artist who is painting her way around Britain’s cities, towns and villages. Please do have a look at her website https://www.artistsusiewest.com/ or follow her on Instagram “artistsusiewest” If you have a local shop and would like to be involved please contact Claudia for further details. Here are a few pictures from the last event.","d":"2021-10-07","t":"Some exciting news from The Christian Blandford Fund","u":"/2021/10/07/some-exciting-news-from-the-christian-blandford-fund/"},{"c":"This year’s Father Christmas visit had to be virtual, with some somewhat unexpected results! We hope you enjoy this short video It was all worth it when we received this lovely message the following day I’m just writing to say a heartfelt thank you. My son has been in and out of St George’s since the end of November and I’ve just picked him up for home leave for Christmas. He was genuinely so thrilled to get his present from you this morning, and I was so touched as his Mum too. Thank you so much and wishing you the merriest of Christmases. We are very happy that this December we have been able to help out Poole Hospital who, as well as standard requests such as new beds for visiting parents, had an unusual request… We would love ceramic mugs with lids for parents to use for hot drinks. We struggle to buy them as they are not seen as essential but help greatly in reducing spill risks and the possibility of scalds. These needs 100 plus mugs, This would be top of our list. I am currently trying to source theses for a cost but am struggling to find anything. I have been able to find bamboo mugs but these can transfer heat easily and not all are dishwasher safe. Fortunately we found just the thing… I’m just writing to say a heartfelt thank you. My son has been in and out of St George’s since the end of November and I’ve just picked him up for home leave for Christmas. He was genuinely so thrilled to get his present from you this morning, and I was so touched as his Mum too. Thank you so much and wishing you the merriest of Christmases.","d":"2020-12-28","t":"Merry Christmas from the Christian Blandford Fund","u":"/2020/12/28/merry-christmas-from-the-christian-blandford-fund/"},{"c":"Christian was due to be playing a Rachmaninoff piano concerto this week. It was to be played in Rochester Cathedral and he was to be backed by a very talented orchestra. For obvious reasons, this has not happened. He has worked hard to learn the piece and we thought we would share the love and share the music by recording it for others to enjoy. It premiered on our FaceBook page on Sunday and is now also available to view here… We hope that you are all getting through this tough period and are particularly consolatory to those parents and families who are looking after children in hospitals in this tough time. The Christian Blandford Fund have got in touch with St George’s and The Royal Marsden, where Christian was treated, to see if there is anything in particular they need during these trying times.","d":"2020-03-24","t":"Share the love, share the music","u":"/2020/03/24/share-the-love-share-the-music/"},{"c":"Please feel free to download and use these logos if you are fund raising for us. Thank you!! Click on the images below for a full sized version. click for XXL Logo (2560×1179)   XL Logo (1800×829)   XLL logo (2560×1305) XL Logo (1800×918)   Small logo","d":"","t":"The Christian Blandford Fund Logos","u":"/the-christian-blandford-fund-logos/"},{"c":"We had another wonderful day at St George’s handing out presents to some lovely children who are unlucky enough to be spending this time of year in hospital. It was particularly good to borrow the toy Tesla car for Jessica the elf to drive around the wards as we handed out presents. This is one of many cars donated by The Tesla Owners Group, in partnership with the Christian Blandford Fund to hospitals throughout the country. The staff at St George’s were all wonderful, a special thanks to Justine and her amazing team of play specialists who helped to organise the presents and accompanied us on the rounds, smiling and happy even when one of them had a toe run over by a Tesla driving elf (sorry Genevieve!). You can see a small selection of the photos below but the rest you can see here Click here for the full collection of photographs – free downloads for families and friends of patients Thank you to the talented photographer, Samantha Connoly Boles, who gave up her time and abilities for free to take these photos. You can see more of her work here. A special thank you to our trustees Darren Bowler and Amy Hancox who wrapped all the presents ready for Santa and to Susannah Boughtflower from Susannah’s People for the fabulous beard.","d":"2019-12-23","t":"Santa 2019!","u":"/2019/12/23/santa-2019/"},{"c":"On June 7th, 8th and 9th over 150 Tesla owners from Tesla Owners UK will be collecting further funds that will go towards our Toy Tesla cars for Children’s hospice and hospital appeal at Fully Charged Live 2019. To date 160 of these cars have been delivered (at no additional cost to the charity) by the superb volunteers at Tesla Owners UK. For anyone wishing to donate towards this campaign please visit Virgin Money Giving or if you’re attending the event please use our new state of the art contactless card donation devices. Or donate via bank transfer: Account Number: 00019565 Sort Code: 40-52-40 Reference: Tesla Cars Payee Name: Christian Blandford Fund If you’re able to help us claim GiftAid please follow these instructions: Download \u0026 fill in the GiftAid form Save it and forward the completed form to: peter@christianblandford.com with email subject ‘GiftAid Form’","d":"2019-06-01","t":"Fully Charged Live – Mini Tesla Appeal","u":"/2019/06/01/fully-charged-live-mini-tesla-appeal/"},{"c":"Emmy Pop is at school with Jessica, Christian’s sister. She was concerned at the amount of old shoes going to land fill when children grew out of them, often when they were still in good condition, so Emmy had a great idea. Why not collect these shoes and sell them at the school fete? This way she could raise money and do her bit to reduce unnecessary waste. We are delighted to say that Emmy chose The Christian Blandford Fund as a recipient of her fund raising and are absolutely amazed at the initiative and determination that Emmy has shown. Not only did Emmy sell second hand shoes but she wrote to Russell and Bromley who kindly donated 10 pairs of new shoes for her to sell. So far she has raised over £300, thank you Emmy you are a star!","d":"2019-05-21","t":"An amazing 8 year old girl’s initiative to help the environment and raise money for the CBF","u":"/2019/05/21/an-amazing-8-year-old-girls-initiative-to-help-the-environment-and-raise-money-for-the-cbf/"},{"c":"The Blandfords have just returned from holiday and were delighted to find two checks for the Christian Blandford Fund. One from St George’s Church in the Weald for £747 and another from LVS Ascot for £743. We would like to particularly thank Luisa Northing and her friends in Coburg House at LVS who took part in a giant cake sale, a ‘splat the teacher” event and a student leg wax! Lu and Christian, many years ago   While waiting at Geneva Airport for departure, we spotted a piano…","d":"2019-04-12","t":"The guy who surprises everybody at that airport piano!","u":"/2019/04/12/the-guy-who-surprises-everybody-at-that-airport-piano/"},{"c":"We were so pleased to be able to support The Royal Marsden by donating towards Ella Gracie’s Garden Project. This new garden for the children’s ward provides some much needed outside space for the kids and their families. The first picture shows the space as it was originally!","d":"2019-01-15","t":"Ella Gracie’s Garden Project","u":"/2019/01/15/ella-gracies-garden-project/"},{"c":"Yesterday we had another amazing day handing out presents at St George’s. Christian and Jessica were fantastic elves helping me as Santa. The CBF trustees, Darren and Amy did a great job of wrapping presents and Neil and the St George’s play specialists were a great help on the rounds. As usual it was a day filled with both laughter and tears. We are reminded how lucky we are that Christian has made such a great recovery and we are touched that he has become a beacon of hope for many families who are going through an incredibly difficult time. Thank you to Matt Binnie who provided his photographic skills and equipment for free. You can see a selection above, the rest are here where friends and families of the patients can get downloads for free. Click on the cloud to download individual photos. For the first time we also handed out presents in a different hospital, our local NHS hospital in Kent, Pembury. As my sledge is having an MOT we had to bring in some external Santa help! Here is a message from Claudia “The Pembury Father Christmas  trip would not have been possible without the generosity of Granville School staff, parents and pupils who generously bought and wrapped all the gifts.  We would also like to thank Dionne Lessner who gave up her time to help Claudia on the day, Susannah Boughtflower (from Susannah’s People and The Kids Entertainers Network) who found us the most brilliant Father Christmas and who waived her fee \u0026 Damien Warren Smith who was a fantastic Father Christmas and who charmed not only the children but their parents and the Dr’s and nurses and play specialists.”","d":"2018-12-19","t":"Father Christmas at St George’s Hospital (and Pembury Hospital) 2018","u":"/2018/12/19/father-christmas-at-st-georges-hospital-and-pembury-hospital-2018/"},{"c":"Our good friends Robin and Bee have kindly donated their entire production of incredible organic pear juice to benefit The Christian Blandford Fund. So we now have 550 bottles looking for a good home and we need your help to sell them! a bargain at £10 for 3 bottles £18 for 6 bottles the bottles are a full litre The pear juice is 100% organic, no pesticides were used on the trees and they have no additives at all. The juice has been lightly pasteurised, which means it will last for 6 months if sealed but other than that, it is as fresh and natural as you can get. The pears were all grown and cared for locally and harvested by Robin himself and we are very grateful that he and Bee decided to donate the result of all this hard work to The Christian Blandford Fund. The juice tastes amazing… on it’s own or with ice 50:50 with water as a sports drink with gin or vodka as a cocktail! We need your help, can you help us sell it? The pear juice is £10 for 3 bottles or £18 for 6, with all the profit after bottling costs going to the Christian Blandford Fund. Do you think you could sell some for us? Could you send an email to your kids’ class parents group for example? Any other ideas for places to sell them? We are planning a prize for the person that sells the most bottles, so please join in the fun and help us sell this incredible and heathy batch of organic pear juice. Thank you! Update The wonderful Fidelity Weston at Romshed Farm will be selling the pear juice for us at their pop up shop on the 1st Dec. The Blandfords buy nearly all of their meat from there and highly recommend it , it is local, organic, ethical, delicious and surprisingly good value when bought in bulk. If you wish to pick up some juice with your order please tell Fidelity before you pick up, some will be available on the 1st for those who forget!","d":"2018-11-04","t":"Organic pear juice to benefit The Christian Blandford Fund","u":"/2018/11/04/organic-pear-juice-to-benefit-the-christian-blandford-fund/"},{"c":"THE STAG THEATRE SUNDAY NOVEMBER 4TH 4 – 6.30PM £15 per person, includes: Popcorn and a choice of soft drink (bar open) In aid of the Christian Blandford Fund – raising money to refurbish the children’s ward at St George’s Hospital, Tooting For tickets please contact: Ruth Bussey or Kym Herregods Thank you so much Kym and Ruth for organising this event for the Christian Blandford Fund, we can’t wait to go along and enjoy what promises to be an amazing night! Claudia, Kim, Leyla and Ruth returning from the CBF triathlon","d":"2018-10-08","t":"The Greatest Showman Sing Along in Sevenoaks!","u":"/2018/10/08/the-greatest-showman-sing-along-in-sevenoaks/"},{"c":"One of the benefits the Christian Blandford Fund has is that its small size makes it very efficient so we can approve purchases that meet our criteria very quickly. The wonderful play specialists at St George’s had an interesting request, a mini MRI scanner. Children being treated often find MRI machines scary and, as they need to lie very still, their fear can not only be distressing for them but can lead to unusable images. This is how Justine, the play specialist put it… This piece of equipment would absolutely prove so invaluable in preparing children/young people for scans and it would also help to reduce the number of patients who go for the scan under a G.A through fear of the actual machine. Showing patients exactly what it looks like (rather than a photograph), how it works and the noise it makes can definitely help to reduce fears, anxieties and misconceptions which will enable fewer G.A’s, risks and waiting times for the patient/parent carer. This is such exciting news for us and we have waited so long for a revolutionary idea like this! I wondered if I could make a wish for the MAGNETOM from you, I completely appreciate that it is very expensive, but the value it would bring to Play In Hospital at St George’s would be second to none, state of the art and help to bring us up to modern day healthcare standards! Which I strive to achieve at all times. We were able to approve the cost of it quickly and I am happy to say that it is now being used on the ward at St Georges. This is from a recent e-mail from Justine. Please see pictures below of our lovely Olivia with my Play Specialist Hayley, learning all about having an MRI scan using the Mini-Magnetom MRI scanner model, which the wonderful Christian Blandford Charity purchased for us to help to teach our patients about having a blood test. As you can see, Olivia really benefitted from the experience and had a wonderful time learning about having an MRI scan. Olivia is a patient on Pinckney ward and has recently had her head henna’d which she absolutely loves. We are delighted that the scanner is being used and is making a difference and we wish Olivia all our love and best wishes.","d":"2018-09-05","t":"One of the more unusual items we have purchased…","u":"/2018/09/05/one-of-the-more-unusual-items-we-have-purchased/"},{"c":"It started off with one or two Tesla owners donating mini Teslas that they received from a referral scheme. Mark Goodier, you may remember, donated his for us to auction and raise funds for our charity. Other owners approached children’s hospitals to see if they would like them, yet more owners pledged money to buy more. Will Fealey, the president of the Tesla Owners UK group had the bright idea of asking Elon Musk for support and Elon agreed to help! There are more details in this news story. The Christian Blandford Fund have offered to help in collecting the money, claiming the gift aid, and assisting in the administration as much as we can. It fits perfectly in our mandate, to help improve the lives of children and their families, particularly those affected by cancer, during prolonged stays in NHS hospitals. We have bought a couple of little electric cars for St George’s in the past and thoroughly agree that going to an op in an Electric mini Tesla is much more fun (and less scary) than going in a wheel chair. We are also delighted that Will Fealey has joined our charity as a trustee and we look forward to helping Will and the generous Tesla owners who have donated help as many children as they can. You can read Will’s post on the Tesla Owners UK site if you would like to recommend a hospital or hospice who would benefit from a Radio Flyer mini Tesla you can do so here. Amazon Smile Don’t forget that we have joined Amazon Smile. If you use this link before you shop at Amazon, they will make a donation of 1.5% of your expenditure for no extra cost to you! Please click on this link to set The Christian Blandford Fund as your charity of choice. Thank you again!","d":"2018-08-14","t":"Our collaboration with The Tesla Owners Group UK and Elon Musk!","u":"/2018/08/14/our-collaboration-with-the-tesla-owners-group-uk-and-elon-musk/"},{"c":"It is always lovely when somebody chooses to support the Christian Blandford Fund, not because they know the Blandford family but because they have been touched by something we have done and want to support what we do. Finton House School is very local to St George’s Hospital and have picked the CBF to be the chosen support in their Summer fete. One of the mums at the school, Lisa, sent us this message… I suggested your charity to be our chosen support for the upcoming school fete for a few a reasons. We spent 3 years in and out of Pinckney ward with our son Rory as St George’s was our local hospital. Rory was complicated so was more often then not whisked off to GOSH. However, it was during ours stays at George’s we read about Christian’s story and your charity on the posters on the ward but also continued to follow you and your hard work online. As a fellow parent who has experienced life within the 4 walls of a hospital (and the maze which is life in the community when not there), I have been so impressed by your attention to detail, your true understanding of what will really help and your generosity of spirit in wanting to make it easier for others. Photo kindly supplied by Finton House School Thank you so much to the staff, pupils and parents at Finton House for thinking of us. St George’s are about to embark on a major refurb of the Children’s wards, something we have been pushing for since Christian was ill and we have been making a big fund raising push to raise the money needed, so your timing is perfect! Photo kindly supplied by Finton House School","d":"2018-06-26","t":"Finton House school fete supports the CBF","u":"/2018/06/26/finton-house-school-fete-supports-the-cbf/"},{"c":"The 2018 CBF Triathlon Most of the sponsorship money has now come in and we have raised a staggering £95,000 including gift aid in the Christian Blandford Fund triathlon. You can track the latest number here, we are incredibly close to our £100,000 target.   Peter, Claudia and the rest of the trustees would like to thank all the incredible people who took part this year and made such an enormous effort in the fund raising. We would also, of course, like to thank everybody who supported this fantastic cause by sponsoring one of their friends in the event. We appreciate that most of you must get asked to support various causes frequently, so we are particularly grateful to so many of you who chose to dig deep and support us this year. We are in discussions with St George’s and thanks to you wonderful participants and sponsors, the refurbishment of the children’s ward should be underway soon. Amazon Smile We have joined Amazon Smile. If you use this link before you shop at Amazon, they will make a donation of 1.5% of your expenditure for no extra cost to you! Please click on this link to set The Christian Blandford Fund as your charity of choice. Thank you again!","d":"2018-06-12","t":"Thank you so much!","u":"/2018/06/12/thank-you-so-much/"},{"c":"If your inbox is anything like ours, it’s recently been filled with emails asking you to read new privacy policies or asking permission to email you. This is because of a new European privacy law called the General Data Protection Regulation (or GDPR), which comes into effect on May 25. While this is an EU law, the basic principle behind it – treat people’s personal data the way you’d want your own data to be treated – benefits everyone. We have always followed this principle in caring for your data, but we have taken this opportunity to review my processes and policies yet again. You can view the updated privacy policy at /privacy-policy/ Our blog posts automatically feed Facebook and our email list. if you are reading this on e-mail, it’s because you’ve either signed up for a fund raising event, or you signed up on our website. You can opt out at any time by clicking the unsubscribe link at the bottom of each newsletter email. I hope you’re finding the emails useful, and thank you for subscribing.","d":"2018-05-24","t":"Christian Blandford Fund – GDPR","u":"/2018/05/24/christian-blandford-fund-gdpr/"},{"c":"We take your privacy very seriously, and do our best to make sure your data is kept safe. The legal jargon used on privacy notices can be tough to read, so here’s a brief summary: What – We may collect personal information such as your name, email address, IP address, billing/delivery address, phone number, amount you donated. We don’t collect anything sensitive, or any information we don’t need. When – We collect information from emails you send us, forms you fill in on this website, or newsletter provider (Mailchimp), as well as background processing such as Google Analytics. Why – We use the information to process your donations, personalize your use of this website, send you information about our charity Who – We don’t sell your information to third-parties. We may transfer your personal data to third-parties who provide us with specific services, such as the newsletter, or Virgin Money Giving who process donations. We require those third-parties to care for your data as carefully as we do. Where – This website runs on a server in the US. By using this website, you are agreeing to your data being transferred outside of the EEA to a US web server. Access – If you need to see or update the information we hold on you, we’ll be pleased to help. How Long – We are required by law to keep some information for at least 6 years (e.g. accountancy records). Information held for other purposes (such as the newsletter or forum membership) can be deleted at your request.","d":"","t":"privacy-policy","u":"/privacy-policy/"},{"c":". Click here for the gallery The CBF triathlon was everything we hoped for and much harder than most people expected. We started at 8.00am with a beautiful canoe around Peel Island or Wild Cat Island as it was called in the film Swallows and Amazons. It was tough on the shoulders but actually really good fun and took about an hour and a quarter. We then cycled for a couple of hours including climbing the Honister pass which is one of the steepest climbs in the UK with gradients up to 1 in 4. The next challenge was to climb up Haystacks which took 3 hours, stunning but harder than we all expected, particularly the way down. The last leg was a 13 mile cycle ride which we were not to excited to learn included another exhausting, seemingly never ending, climb. We hit the finish line at around 5pm, exhausted but happy! There are plenty of photos of the event here. The prize of a week in the villa All our supporters, including those who donated, took part, gave their time for free, who like our Facebook page and are on our mailing list were entered into a draw to win a week in a villa in Spain. The prize was won by Anya Roberts who kindly sponsored Matt and Andrea Starbuck. Congratulations! The Aim We are very close now to the £100,000 we have been quoted to renovate the children’s wards and St George’s in Tooting and have pledged to raise all that amount. If you were planning to sponsor somebody partaking and haven’t got around to it yet, please do so now and help us meet our target. If you have already sponsored somebody, thank you so much, we really do appreciate it and we guarantee that every penny raised will go to improving the lives of ill children staying in often very frightening and uncomfortable wards. Click here to donate or track the amount raised, a list of all the people who participated, together with their fund raising page is at the bottom. To all those who took part, thank you for making such an incredible effort with the fund raising and with the challenge itself. It was a genuine pleasure to spend the weekend with you. Please share or forward this email to your sponsors as a way of thanking them from us. Lots of love, Peter and Claudia Blandford Peter and Claudia Click here for the gallery","d":"2018-05-21","t":"CBF 2018 Triathlon – a massive thank you from us!","u":"/2018/05/21/cbf-2018-triathlon-a-massive-thank-you-from-us/"},{"c":"Leyla Gilbey and Isabelle McCann organised a fantastic evening at Otto’s in Sevenoaks and raised over £2000. The photo’s of the evening are here. Thank you to the team at Otto’s, many of whom gave their time for free, the people who attended and of course Leyla and Isabelle for organising. Leyla and Isabelle’s Fund Raising Supper   There is less than 3 weeks to go until the CBF triathlon and many of the participants are doing really well with fund raising already. Thank you to all those who have set up your Virgin Money Giving Pages and thank you to all of you who have already sponsored someone taking part.","d":"2018-05-01","t":"Thank you Leyla, Isabelle and the team at Otto’s","u":"/2018/05/01/thank-you-leyla-isabelle-and-the-team-at-ottos/"},{"c":"Good News!! Today Christian and I have been at Great Ormond Street Hospital for his annual ultrasound/bloods/X-rays/consultant for his kidney. It’s an amazing hospital full of wonderful Dr’s, nurses, play specialists, therapists etc. However it is also a sad place full of very, VERY sick children. It reminds me how far we have come and how incredibly lucky we are. The Doctor told us that Christians kidney ultrasound looked good and assuming the bloods and urine come back OK, we won’t need to go back again!! ??","d":"2018-04-11","t":"A nice message from Claudia","u":"/2018/04/11/a-nice-message-from-claudia/"},{"c":"As a thank you to the wonderful people who have supported the Christian Blandford Fund, the Blandford family are donating a week in a villa in Begur, Spain to one lucky winner. Everyone who has sponsored somebody, donated to our charity or is joining us for the event will be entered. The lucky winner will be drawn on the Saturday night after the triathlon and that person will be able to choose any week outside of July and August in the next two years to take friends and family on an amazing holiday. You will have a choice of either Villa Begur or Villa Sa Riera subject to availability, both have 6 bedrooms, their own pools and sleep up to 12 people. You can compare the two villas and get more details on www.begurvillas.com. Anybody who is taking part in the triathlon please feel free to use this offer when raising sponsorship. Anybody who sponsors you will automatically be entered. As another thank you, participants in the triathlon will be eligible for 20% discount for any booking in the next three years. For a chance to win a week in one of these incredible villas you can of course sponsor Claudia and Peter, our fund raising page is here . Thank you very much! Villa Begur Villa Sa Riera   The winner of the free week in the villa will be chosen randomly. The Christian Blandford Fund is not paying anything for the prize. The winner and their chosen companions will have to make their own way to Begur in the Costa Brava. The entry into the draw is not contingent on a donation, if you wish to be entered into the draw please send us an email with your details. Good luck!","d":"2018-04-08","t":"One lucky supporter will win a week in an incredible Spanish villa with its own pool","u":"/2018/04/08/one-lucky-supporter-will-win-a-week-in-an-incredible-spanish-villa-with-its-own-pool/"},{"c":"The sign ups for the CBF Triathlon are going really well and we are very excited that there will be nearly 50 of us taking part. On the 18th May we are going up to the Lake District and having a fantastic weekend while hopefully raising £100,000 to completely refurbish the children’s ward at St George’s Hospital. We would love it if another few people joined us. If you are partaking, can we please ask you to forward this to others who may be interested in going with you? It would be fantastic if we could get the number up to 60 participants. If you need to pull the heartstrings, feel free to use this video! If you want to appeal to the wallet strings point out that The Christian Blandford Fund does not pay any trustees or staff and 100% of the money raised will go to our aim of improving the lives of seriously ill children, particularly those affected by cancer. Thank you, Peter and Claudia Blandford","d":"2018-03-25","t":"We need  a few more people to join us on the CBF Tri!","u":"/2018/03/25/we-need-a-few-more-people-to-join-us-on-the-cbf-tri/"},{"c":"We hope you enjoy this video taken at Toulouse Airport last week For those of you who are either participating or thinking of participating in our triathlon, please feel free to share this with people who have or are thinking about sponsoring you, you can use the share buttons at the bottom of this page. Also please take a look at our previous blog post with some useful info for triathlon participants… /2018/02/08/some-great-news-and-important-info-for-triathlon-participants/","d":"2018-02-20","t":"Christian amazes the crowds at Toulouse Airport","u":"/2018/02/20/christian-amazes-the-crowds-at-toulouse-airport/"},{"c":"We have been given the green light to go ahead with the refurbishment of the children’s wards at St George’s Hospital in Tooting. The work will start in March with Nicholls ward and The Pinckney Ward, where Christian spent a lot of time, will come next. We are very proud to say that the Christian Blandford Fund will be funding the majority of this work and have pledged £100,000 for the project. We have spent over 10 years trying to push for these improvements so are delighted with the news. Thank you Darren Bowler, one of the CBF trustees for your perseverance in pushing this forward. This brings us nicely to the next hurdle, the £100,000! If you can not join us for the triathlon but would like to help please consider sponsoring me and Claudia here. The sign ups for the Christian Blandford Fund Triathlon are going really well, but we are still short of the target 70 people we would like to have partaking. Please forward this to somebody who may be interested in joining us for a great weekend while fund raising for this very important and targeted project. If you are thinking about signing up and haven’t done so yet, please do so now here. Those of you who have decided to join us, thank you! This next bit is for you: If you have any friends or family who you think would like to join you please encourage them to join, we could do with just a few more signing up. We hope all participants will donate £99 each before the event to help cover event costs, the Blandfords have made a donation to cover the rest. If you have not done so please do so here Please makes sure you have registered with skyline Please set up a just giving fund raising page and share it with friends, family and co workers. Search for “CBF” in organised event and select no to “Have any of your selected charities contributed to the cost of your event?” If your company has some kind of a matching or charity donation scheme please look into it for us. Claudia or I are very happy to pitch to any companies if that is required. We are staying at the Lodore Falls Hotel and and Skyline have negotiated a preferential rate of £120 per person per night for dinner bed and breakfast. They have held a mixture of twins and doubles and should have contacted you about it. If you would like to stay somewhere else that is absolutely fine, you can search for hotels here Claudia and I are getting the 1430 train from London, Euston to Penrith (North Lakes) on the Friday 18th May. Let us know if you book the train too so that we can organise for a mini bus or taxi to pick us all up. We return on the 1207 train on the Sunday 20th May, arriving at Euston at 1518. Any more questions? look at the FAQ and feel free to contact us Finally and most importantly, thank you for being part of our team, we are delighted you are with us!","d":"2018-02-08","t":"Some great news and important info for triathlon participants","u":"/2018/02/08/some-great-news-and-important-info-for-triathlon-participants/"},{"c":"When is it? 18th – 20th may 2018 What does it entail? 2 mile open water canoe, an 8 mile bike ride, a 7 mile trek up Haystacks followed by another 13 mile bike ride cycling through some of the most beautiful parts of the Lake District. How much does it cost to enter? There is no entry fee but we recommend making a donation of at least £99 + Gift Aid to help cover fees Does that mean that some of the money raised will go to pay for the event? No, the Blandford family have made a donation to the charity which covers the majority of the entry fee. That together with donations from participants means that ALL the money donated by sponsors including the Gift Aid will go to the Christian Blandford Fund. More details about this here. Do I need to take my own bike and or canoe!? No! Skyline will provide the canoe and or bike Who are Skyline? They are the company that are organising the event, providing marshals, bikes, canoes, and helping with the accommodation. All participants need to register with them here. What will I need to take? Water proof clothing and good quality water resistant walking boots are recommended What about accommodation? We are staying at the Lodore Falls Hotel and and Skyline have negotiated a preferential rate of £120 per person per night for dinner bed and breakfast. They have held a mixture of twins and doubles and should have contacted you about it. If you would like to stay somewhere else that is absolutely fine, you can search for hotels here What about travel? You are responsible for getting yourself to and from the Lake District. Claudia and I are getting the train there 14:30 from Euston to Penrith on the 18th May, returning on the 20th May at 12.07. It probably makes sense to book the tickets soon if you wish to do the same. We used The Train Line. If there are enough people interested in going together by coach or minibus from one location we are happy to help arrange that. What’s this about a free trip to a villa? One lucky supporter will win a week in an incredible Spanish villa with its own pool How do I set up a fund raising page? Please set up a just giving fund raising page and share it with friends, family and co workers. Search for “CBF” in organised event and select no to “Have any of your selected charities contributed to the cost of your event?” What’s happening after the event? We plan to have dinner and a few drinks at the Lodore Falls Hotel, anybody who is not staying there is very welcome to join us. Where can I get the general details and/or sign up? Click here for the page I can’t make it but would like to sponsor Team Blandford Thank you very much! The page is here I still have a question that is not answered Contact us by filling in the form here","d":"","t":"The CBF Triathlon FAQ","u":"/the-cbf-triathlon-faq/"},{"c":"You are running out of time to register for the Christian Blandford Fund Triathlon! Lots of people have now signed up but we also have lots of friends who said they are going to sign up who have not yet done so. You know who you are! Please do so as soon as possible by clicking here and following the instructions. All participants are expected to make a donation of a minimum of £99 to cover their costs but if you would rather do this later just sign up with Skyline and let us know that the payment is coming later. On a separate note we received a lovely thank you note from St George’s Hospital which we would like to share with you: Thank you from St. George’s","d":"2018-01-19","t":"Time is running out to register!","u":"/2018/01/19/time-is-running-out-to-register/"},{"c":"I can’t believe that this is the eighth year in a row that we have gone to St George’s to hand out Christmas presents. As usual it was a fantastic day and I am always impressed with how high the spirits are amongst the parents and staff. Thank you very much to the wonderful play specialists for helping Santa with his bags and to Hugh Miller from Boy Meets Girl Photography for the fantastic photos. Amy and Darren did a great job of ordering and wrapping the presents and Henry and Christian were on hand to help Santa. Parents can download print quality versions of the photos here Merry Christmas!","d":"2017-12-23","t":"Santa at St George’s 2017","u":"/2017/12/23/santa-at-st-georges-2017/"},{"c":"Mark Goodier, the Radio 1 DJ, has very kindly donated a kids electric Tesla Model S to the Christian Blandford Fund which we are auctioning to raise funds for the upcoming refurbishment of the children’s wards at St George’s. It is an incredible toy designed by Radio Flyer in collaboration with Tesla, the beautiful design features working headlights, turbine rims and an authentic Tesla paint finish (metallic red). It is powered by flight speed lithium-ion technology to provide more play time than any competitive product, charges in only 3 hours. It can be set to 3 or 6 mph perfect for children up to 7 years old. This beautiful piece of machinery is second only to the real Model S and retails at £549. Because 100% of the proceeds of this auction are going to charity there are no fees to eBay and the amount paid will have gift aid applied, so the charity will receive 25% on top of the final price. Please tag anybody who have kids the right age and may be interested. We are making it a short auction so we can get it to the new owners in time for Christmas! We would prefer collection from Sevenoaks but would be willing to arrange delivery at cost if required. The listing on E-bay is here.","d":"2017-12-16","t":"Kids electric Tesla donated to the CBF","u":"/2017/12/16/kids-electric-tesla-donated-to-the-cbf/"},{"c":"Most of the work we do has been for St George’s Hospital in Tooting but we help in other places too. We just received this thank you from York Teaching Hospital…   Thanks to the Christian Blandford Fund the Arts Team at York Teaching Hospital has worked with staff on York Hospital’s Children’s ward to coordinate new art work for the bedrooms. The Trust’s Estates Team freshened up the walls with a lick of paint and a bright new colour scheme, ready for the addition of child-friendly illustrations. We commissioned local illustrator Tanya McClelland to produce the artwork, working with patients, visitors and staff to choose the final designs. We felt her playful illustrations were perfect for the project, with designs taking inspiration from parks and outdoor spaces across the city of York and the beaches of Yorkshires East Coast. We would like to thank the Christian Blandford Fund for making this project a reality and helping to transform the ward. Once again many thanks from all our staff this change to the ward environment will make a huge difference. If you have not yet entered for the CBF Lake District Triathlon and plan to do so, please do so now as numbers are limited and places are filling up fast.","d":"2017-11-13","t":"Artwork installed in York Hospital’s Children’s Ward","u":"/2017/11/13/artwork-installed-in-york-hospitals-childrens-ward/"},{"c":"Christian’s nana, Wendy Myers decided against entering the CBF Triathlon even though we are convinced she is more than capable. Wendy decided instead to organise a bridge afternoon to raise money for The Christian Blandford Fund. There was a lot of work involved and, with Gift Aid, Wendy raised and incredible £1500. Thank you so much Wendy! If you have decided to join us for the Triathlon next May but have not got around to applying yet, please do so now, we need to start organising accommodation and the sooner we get a better idea of numbers the better. APPLY HERE","d":"2017-10-26","t":"Thank you Wendy!","u":"/2017/10/26/thank-you-wendy/"},{"c":"Click here for more details   We are very happy to say that the take up for the CBF triathlon in May next year has been fantastic but we still have a long way to go. In order to join us for what promises to be a fantastic event please follow the following steps Step 1 – Please click here to donate to the Christian Blandford Fund Step 2 – Click here to sign up with Skyline who are organising the event Step 3 – click here to set up a Virgin Money Giving page to start your fund raising select organised event and search for “CBF” Thank you to those who have donated more than the recommended £99 per person to join us. The extra amount you have given goes straight into the fund, and will help us meet our ambitious target of raising £100,000. We welcome people signing up in teams and couples but remind you that the recommended donation of £99 is per person taking part. The cost of entry for the charity is £320 per entry but the Blandford family are happy to be donating the majority of this fee and we ask everybody, in return, to make the minimum donation of £99 each. Gift Aid – please tick the gift aid box if you are a UK tax payer. If you pay more than 25% tax, we recommend you making a note of this donation for your own tax return. If you are an additional tax rate payer, for example, you can claim back another 20% of your donation on your 2017/18 tax return. Many people forget to do this. You can see the progress of the Campaign on the Virgin Money Giving page If you use Facebook and Twitter please follow us and share our posts. Social media really helps! The last big event we organised was a 10km run in 2014. Life was tougher in those days but this was a certainly high point in a dark time…","d":"2017-10-18","t":"The CBF 2018 Triathlon – update","u":"/2017/10/18/the-cbf-2018-triathlon-update/"},{"c":"Ten year’s ago this month we wrote this on our blog… Last week Christian had a bone scan and a CT scan and the results came back today, he is clear of cancer!We’ve got a long way to go and he is still in danger from the treatment, his kidney function, for example, is still not what it should be, but we are obviously very relieved. There was a strange moment in the school car park when he started back at school. A whisper went around the crowds of parents and teachers when they saw Christian, and as he stood there looking confused, a round of applause went up from everybody around him. . . Claudia and I have decided that we should celebrate the fact that, not only did Christian survive against all odds, but he as matured into a wonderful and talented young man. We both feel the triathlon planned for 2018 will be a great event and opportunity to raise a significant amount of money for the much needed refurb of the children’s wards at St George’s. We have had some very positive feedback from people who want to be involved and the high cost did not seem to put too many people off. However, we were still unsure. . We have decided that we’d mark this momentous year by sponsoring the event ourselves. The triathlon will cost the Christian Blandford Fund £330 per person and we initially wanted people to cover the majority of the entry fee themselves. Instead, we have decided that we will make a donation to cover the majority of the cost of entry for the first 70 people. . All that we ask is that those who sign up make a small contribution (we suggest £99) themselves and make a big effort in their fund raising. 100% of money raised will go to the Christian Blandford Fund. . We hope that by covering most of the costs of this event, our contribution will end up raising significantly more than simply donating the money to the Christian Blandford Fund. With your help we aim to raise over £100,000 which will make a massive difference to the refurbishment of this children’s wards at St George’s. . . More details . The triathlon will be in the Lake District on the 18th-20th May 2018 and will entail a 2 mile open water canoe, an 8 mile bike ride, a 7 mile trek up Haystacks followed by another 13 mile bike ride cycling through some of the most beautiful parts of the Lake District. . Anybody that attends would also have to make their own way to the Lake District and pay for their accommodation and meals while they are there. Skyline will be very happy to help you find rooms and we hope to be grouped in a one or two hotels with preferential rates. The plan is to travel up Friday night \u0026 have a chilled evening as it’s an early start on the Saturday. Saturday night, after the triathlon, we hope to arrange a celebratory dinner and a fun night with as many of the attendees as possible. . It will be a lot of fun and we are very excited about it and really hope that by sponsoring the event we can raise a lot of money and have a lot of fun with many of our friends and family. People are very welcome to come up and support even if they are not partaking. . If you wish to take part please click here for more details . Peter and Claudia Blandford","d":"2017-10-02","t":"The big announcement – please read and share","u":"/2017/10/02/cbftriathlon/"},{"c":". The Event The triathlon took place in the Lake District on the 18th-20th May 2018 and entailed a 2 mile open water canoe, an 8 mile bike ride, a 7 mile trek up Haystacks followed by another 13 mile bike ride cycling through some of the most beautiful parts of the Lake District. The Aim St George’s Hospital, Tooting, is about to start renovation works on all their children’s wards and they have asked the Christian Blandford Fund to assist with both ideas and financing. This could be the biggest and most important project we have supported and will directly help thousands of sick children every year. The children’s wards badly needed renovation when Christian was a frequent visitor ten years ago, and very little to improve them has been done since. We have not been able to help until now because there has always been a long term rebuilding plan which, frustratingly, never materialised. We now have the green light to go ahead and make some significant changes. We aim to raise £100,000. The cost of the event The cost of the event was all covered by the people taking part and a donation from the Blandford family. Read more about why they did this here. Donations To donate or track the total raised so far please click here           .","d":"","t":"The CBF Lake District Triathlon","u":"/the-cbf-lake-district-triathlon/"},{"c":"St George’s Hospital, Tooting, is about to start renovation works on all their children’s wards and they have asked the Christian Blandford Fund to assist with both ideas and financing. This could be the biggest and most important project we have supported and will directly help thousands of sick children every year. The children’s wards badly needed renovation when Christian was a frequent visitor ten years ago, and very little to improve them has been done since. We have not been able to help until now because there has always been a long term rebuilding plan which, frustratingly, never materialised. We now have the green light to go ahead and make some significant changes. We have been looking at some fund raising ideas and would really appreciate your feedback on this idea. Earlier this year, Claudia took part in a triathlon in the Lake District which entailed a 2 mile open water canoe, an 8 mile bike ride which included the very tough Honister Pass (most people got off their bikes and walked this part!), a 7 mile trek up Haystacks followed by another 13 mile bike ride cycling through some of the most beautiful parts of the Lake District. Along with her 12 team mates, they raised £14,000 for charity and had an absolutely incredible weekend. Claudia and the rest of the trustees think this would be a fabulous event for the Christian Blandford Fund. If we could get 70-100 people involved, it would be a lot of fun, we’d all get fitter training for it and we could raise a significant amount of money for a well targeted project. The problem is that an event like this is not possible to organise on the cheap. In order for it to be safe for all those taking part, it requires route marshals, support vehicles, instructors, first aid staff; hire of bikes, canoes and insurance. We have asked Skyline events, who organised the last one Claudia attended to quote for an exclusive event for the Christian Blandford Fund. The event will cost the charity, depending on numbers, about £330 per person. Anybody that attends would also have to make their own way to the Lake District and pay for their accommodation and meals while they are there. Skyline and us will be very happy to help you find rooms and we hope to be grouped in a one or two hotels with preferential rates. The plan is to travel up Friday night \u0026 have a chilled evening as it’s an early start on the Saturday. Saturday night, after the triathlon, we hope to arrange a celebratory dinner and a fun night with as many of the attendees as possible. We do not believe in expensive events where a large part of the money raised goes to pay for the participant to have a great weekend. This leaves us with a dilema: is it possible to have the event such as this and maintain our charity ethos where money that is donated goes directly to help those that need help and not on staff salaries and expenses? The conclusion we have come to is that the cost of the event has to be covered by the participant and the gift aid on any amount they raise. So for example, having a £150 registration fee for the participant who would then have a fund raising target of £900, the gift aid on the money raised plus the registration fee would cover the costs. This means 100% of anything donated would go to the help sick children in hospital. People could, of course, pay the full amount of the event without having a fund raising target at all. We would really appreciate your help with this, for it to work we’ll need at least 70 people who attend and fund raise. We are torn as we feel this event could be amazing, but do not want to exclude anybody by the entry fee or fund raising target. We would love to hear your feedback. If you have read all this and are excited a the prospect of joining us in May 2018 for a weekend of walking, cycling, canoeing and no doubt lots of giggles, then please tell us. Similarly if you feel that the joining fee and/or fund raising target is too high, we want to know. The brochure is here Please either reply by email or we welcome a public discussion on our Facebook page where this post will also go. https://www.facebook.com/christianblandford We need your help – please read, respond and share… St George’s Hospital, Tooting, is about to start renovation works… Posted by christianblandford.com on Thursday, 6 July 2017","d":"2017-07-06","t":"We need your help – please respond and share","u":"/2017/07/06/we-need-your-help-please-respond-and-share/"},{"c":"Christian’s Favourite composer and musician is Ludovico Einaudi who has been a huge inspiration since Pete’s friend Sean Gardiner recommended him. Peter and Christian were both very excited to be going to Chelsea Hospital to watch him live in such a beautiful outdoor venue. What Christian didn’t know is that Marc Parish, his uncle, had arranged for a meet and greet after the show. On the way into London, we noticed a piano at Sevenoaks station with a sign saying “feel free to play” so Christian did… The concert was amazing and we were so lucky to go a very small after party where Christian got to spend some quality time discussing music with his hero, Ludovico, who was incredibly charming and attentive even though had just come off the stage from what must have been an exhausting show. Thank you so much to much to Marc, Zeina from Decca, Gianluca, and of course Ludovico and his amazing team of charming musicians for giving a young lad and his father a wonderful day.","d":"2017-06-18","t":"Who ever said never meet your hero didn’t know Ludovico Einaudi","u":"/2017/06/18/who-ever-said-never-meet-your-hero-didnt-know-ludovico-einaudi/"},{"c":"Christian, continues to excel in his music. If anybody wants to hear more of the tracks he has written, he has set up a channel on Sound Cloud. You can listen on a browser here, Soundcloud also has apps on IOS, Android and even Sonos, where you can install the app and search for him. Christian . Claudia’s friend, Sophie Martin has done the London to Brighton challenge for the Christian Blandford Fund. That is a 100km run! an amazing achievement and we are so grateful that she chose the Christian Blandford Fund to support. Sophie has raised nearly £1000 with gift aid and all of that money, like everything raised for the Christian Blandford Fund, will go to improving the lives of children unfortunate enough to be in hospital, particularly those affected by cancer. Sophie’s Virgin Money Giving page is here . Sophie","d":"2017-06-10","t":"Thank you Sophie and new music from Christian","u":"/2017/06/10/thank-you-sophie-and-new-music-from-christian/"},{"c":"We managed to get a place for Neil Berrecloth to run the London Marathon. He has paid the entry fee himself so any sponsorship will go straight to us and we remain nearly 100% efficient with almost no money being spent on administration or fund raising. Neil’s Fund Raising Page Neil is a great friend of the Blandfords, and we thank him for his support and wish him lots of luck in the final stages of preparation and on the day itself! Neil and Christian Neil with the Blandfords More recently","d":"2017-04-18","t":"Neil Berrecloth is running the London Marathon next Sunday","u":"/2017/04/18/neil-berrecloth-is-running-the-london-marathon-next-sunday/"},{"c":"We haven’t written much about how Christian is doing recently. He is doing very well! His video game creating is mushrooming with some famous youtubers playing his games and his own you tube channel doing phenomenally well with a recent play through of a game he wrote getting well over a million views! His gaming site is www.cbgames.co. He is also still playing and writing music, here is a composition he wrote recently, if you’re interested in the games they are on the same channel.","d":"2017-01-15","t":"Christian’s Latest Piano Piece","u":"/2017/01/15/christians-latest-piano-piece/"},{"c":"www.christianblandford.com   It has become a tradition that has now been going since 2010. The Bowlers and the Hancox’s, trustees of the Christian Blandford Fund, order and wrap the presents and we visit the hospital to hand them out. This year Santa had his usual elf Chichi (Christian) and we were also joined by the reindeer Prancer (Jessica) who had a fabulous time ordering Father Christmas around. We also had a full entourage of help including Henry Blandford, Darren and James Bowler, Neil Berrecloth, the wonderful play specialists, and Trevor Jacobs who offered his photography services at very late notice. It is always an emotional day. We vividly remember being at the hospital this time of year, hoping that we would be able to get home for as normal a Christmas as we could manage. The hospital wards are, as always, full of love and hope tinged with a fair share of pain and sadness. We like to think that we managed to raise a few smiles today and hopefully brightened up the day for some children and their families during a difficult time. The photos are on our Facebook page here and can be downloaded in print quality here.","d":"2016-12-22","t":"Father Christmas visits St George’s","u":"/2016/12/22/father-christmas-visits-st-georges/"},{"c":"It seems like only yesterday that Christian was loving going to Stagecoach. His sister Jessica, has followed in similar vein, and goes to Make Believe in Sevenoaks. They recently had their Christmas show and half the money they raised went to the Christian Blandford fund. Thank you very much! Jessica at Make Believe    It’s that time of year and Santa and his elves are preparing presents for the Children unfortunate enough to be in hospital over Christmas. This year Santa will have a much better beard thanks to the lovely Dainty Sue and the Kid’s Entertainment Network. Thanks guys! Bad Beard Santa!","d":"2016-12-07","t":"A couple of Thank you’s","u":"/2016/12/07/a-couple-of-thank-yous/"},{"c":"Chris Elsmore was a great friend of the Blandford family and he and his lovely wife Simone chose the Christian Blandford fund for donations in lieu of presents on their 40th Birthday. Peter and Claudia were very touched that Simone chose us again as one of the two charities for donations at Chris’ funeral last week. Our share, with gift aid, was over £1000 which is a testament to Chris and the generosity of his friends and family. Thank you so much Simone. Chris, Simone and Jude   Chris’s friend, Mark Puddephat will be running the Paris marathon and has decided to raise money for the same two charities. Hi donation page is here, thank you very much Mark!","d":"2016-03-12","t":"Chris Elsmore","u":"/2016/03/12/chris-elsmore/"},{"c":"We had a wonderful day handing out presents to the Children at St George’s Hospital in Tooting www.christianblandford.com   Thank you very much to the play specialists for all their help. Thank you to the trustee families, Darren and James Bowler , Amy and Anna Hancox and Henry and Christian Blandford for being amazing Santa helpers! The photos were all taken by the very talented Hugh Miller from Boy meets Girl Photography who gave up his time and skills for nothing but a thank you. The photos are available for the parents to look at and share on Facebook here or they can be downloaded in print quality from here. Thank you also to all our wonderful supporters and donators who have raised money and donated money so this can be possible.","d":"2015-12-21","t":"Santa and his Elves Visit St George’s","u":"/2015/12/21/santa-and-his-elves-visit-st-georges/"},{"c":"We have a few bits of news so thought it would be a good idea to do a quick blog post to update our friends and followers on what has been happening. We are almost ready for the Santa visit on the 21st December, as usual Pete will be donning the Santa outfit and will be accompanied by his helpful elf Christian. It is amazing how quite a lot of kids are quite frightened of the 6′ 4″ santa but all love his elf! Thank you very much to our trustees Darren Bowler and Amy Hancox for ordering and wrapping the presents and for Hugh from Boy Meets Girl Photography, who is donating his time and skills for free on the day. Waitrose in Sevenoaks have The Christian Blandford Fund as one of their nominated charities. Please drop by and pop the green coin into the middle bin! Christian The CBF   Jess Christian wrote a lovely piece of music for a string quartet. As proud parents we hope you don’t mind us sharing it!","d":"2015-12-12","t":"A Christmas Update","u":"/2015/12/12/a-christmas-update/"},{"c":"Christian is in the Chapel Choir at the New Beacon School and they had their Advent service at the beautiful chapel at Tonbridge school. The junior school choir sang Christian’s composition, “The Snow”, while he played the piano. If any parent wants photos of the event they can be downloaded from here. This is a time of year to appreciate what we have and to help others that are less fortunate. Darren and Amy are currently ordering and wrapping toys for Santa to deliver to children who are unlucky enough to be in St George’s over Christmas. We continue to work to work closely with Martin at Samuel’s charity and look forward to continuing to improve children’s comfort in hospitals in 2016. Merry Christmas! Peter Blandford’s photo","d":"2015-12-02","t":"The New Beacon choir sing Christian’s carol","u":"/2015/12/02/the-new-beacon-choir-sing-christians-carol/"},{"c":"We are thrilled to announce that Waitrose Sevenoaks have chosen The Christian Blandford Fund as one of their three charities for December’s Community Matters!! This is a scheme whereby at the end of your shop you are given a green token to place in a box of the charity you’d most like to support. At the end of the month Waitrose donates £1000 between the 3 charities, with the charity that has the most amount of green tokens getting the majority of the donation. Please share this with your Sevenoaks friends and make sure the green tokens go in our bin! Henry and Christian","d":"2015-11-14","t":"Great News","u":"/2015/11/14/great-news/"},{"c":"Kevin Britt is doing the London night rider event and raising money for The Christian Blandford Fund. Kevin writes The night rider event is a 100k 62 mile ride around London taking in 50 of London’s most famous site including the Olympic park, Tower Bridge, Canary Wharf, Piccadilly Circus, Trafalger Square, the Royal Opera House and the London Eye. There are over 4000 riders raising funds for lots of different charities. There is a musical theme to this years ride and takes the ride past icon musical sites in London including 21b baker street and abbey road (the Beatles) plus the pub from Bridget Jones and the globe in borough market. There is a selfie competition on the night to show the fun side of the ride. The event is organised by classic tours and there are no closed roads so the ride takes place along side the London night traffic. It sounds like a lot of fun, thank you Kevin for choosing the Christian Blandford Fund, good luck with the event and with the fund raising. Kevin’s page is here","d":"2015-03-22","t":"Kevin  Britt – Night Rider!","u":"/2015/03/22/kevin-britt-night-rider/"},{"c":"Christian used to love going to Stagecoach in Tonbridge, and I received this lovely email from Wendy who runs it… I just wanted to get in touch to let you know that on our last day of term (28th March) our students will be having an informal Medieval Market for parents and friends. We would very much like to donate any money that the children make on the stalls to Christian’s charity. Address: Weald of Kent Grammar School, Tudeley lane, Tonbridge TN9 2JP Time: 12.00 ish Our students will be dressing up in character (and hopefully some parents too!). We have a few stalls as follows: Medieval makeovers’ – Come and decorate a hat or have your hair done! ‘Lotions and potions’ – The witches stall of goodies ‘Cakes and baked goods stalls’ – (Cakes,biscuits all food welcome) ‘Farm shop’ – Items of clothing, fruit and vegetables and eggs. Song/Dance – Our younger students have been busy devising their own song lyrics “Horrible Histories” style and will be showing these too. Our older students will be showing their Blues Brothers Medley which we are performing next week at Her Majesty’s Theatre and there will also be other dance routines, including a piece our Dance Troupe performed at Mick Jagger Centre, Dartford in Focus on the Arts Festival. We are looking forward to going along and would like to thank Wendy and stage coach for their ongoing support!","d":"2015-03-18","t":"Stagecoach – Medieval  Market","u":"/2015/03/18/stagecoach-medieval-market/"},{"c":"Claudia received an email recently from the lovely Lucy Docherty. Hi Claudia, Its Lucy here. I have attached to this email a piece of English work I had to complete for school, because Mum thought you might like to read it. We had to do a speech using persuasive and emotive language, and I thought Christian’s inspiringstory of his brave battle against cancer should be the main point of my speech, to persuade people to raise money and support the cause. I performed it in class today and received an A*, I hope you enjoy reading what I have come up with! Thank you, Lucy Docherty We think Lucy deserved the A*, in fact we thought it was so good we would share it on our site… You have a choice in this world, I believe, about how to tell sad stories. I stand here today, to tell you the story of Christian Blandford. Christian was a brave kind young boy and has touched many, and will continue to do so. Christian Blanford has been though cancer twice. He was diagnosed with a clear cell sarcoma of the kidney, a rare and aggressive form of childhood cancer, in January 2005 when he was just 18 months old. After a grueling year of treatment, he was given the all clear but unfortunately relapsed in November 2006 when the cancer spread to a bone in his leg. His second round of surgery, chemo and radiotherapy in 2007 was even more intensive and demanding than the first. The term leukemia refers to cancers of the white blood cells. Every bodily cell is tightly regulated with respect to growth, interaction with other cells and even its life span. Cancer occurs when a type of cell has lost these normal control mechanisms and grows in a way that the body can no longer regulate. When someone has leukemia, these abnormal white blood cells crowd the bone marrow and flood the bloodstream. As it progresses, the cancer interferes with the body’s production of other types of cells. Leukemia accounts for 30% of all childhood cancers and usually the chances for cure are very good. With treatment, most children with leukemia will be free of the disease without it coming back. However, the world is not a wish-granting factory, and this was not the case for Christian, who battled hard throughout his life. How would you feel if the person that was affected that was your son? Your daughter? Your best friend? Your brother? Your sister? Your father? Your mother? Your boyfriend or girlfriend? Your grandma? Your grandpa? Your aunty? Your uncle? The connections people have with each other are endless, and all it takes is the loss of one to smash this love to pieces. The marks humans leave are too often scars. This is what we must do. And as a human race, we must stop this dreadful disease. Not only is it life threatening, not only is it endlessly painful but it tears family and friends apart. That’s the thing about pain, it demands to be felt. Together, as a human race, we can stop this agony. We can do this, and we will do this. “The goal is to live a full productive life even with all that ambiguity. No matter what happens, whether the cancer flares up again or whether you die, the important thing is the days that you have had, you will have lived” And that is exactly what Christian did. He knew the possibilities of survival were slight however he continued to be strong and battle hard against the cancer. Christian was still the same happy lively smiling boy he was before he had cancer, still determined. He surrounded himself with his loved ones who supported him all the way and this made Christian and everyone he was close too realize something. Grief does not change you, it reveals you. Cancer may cause loss of life and extreme devastation and agony, but cancer cannot cripple love. It cannot shatter hope. It cannot corrode faith. It cannot destroy peace. It cannot kill friendship. It cannot suppress memories. It cannot silence courage. It cannot invade the soul. It cannot steal eternal life. And it cannot conquer the spirit. On the 28th of September, Peter Blanford (Christians father) informed everyone about the recent news they had received. “Last week Christian had a bone scan and a CT scan and the results came back today, he is clear of cancer! We’ve got a long way to go and he is still in danger from the treatment, his kidney function is still not what it should be, but we are obviously very relieved. There was a strange moment in the school car park when he started back at school. A whisper went around the crowds of parents and teachers when they saw Christian, and as he stood there, looking confused, a round of applause went up from everybody around him”. Cancer affects so many children worldwide and their families and friends and all the love and care that surrounds them. These children who are affected might not ever have the opportunities that we all take for granted in our lifetime. They die in the middle of their life, in the middle of a sentence. These very sick children may not be able to experience any of these things. Their future is uncertain, they may never be able to take on and appreciate the amazing opportunities that life gives us. Cancer is a dreadful disease that affects millions of people everywhere, but it does teach us to never ever take anything in our life for granted, for we are so much luckier than we seem. The future of our nation and if we survive this disease does not just depend on the scientists or researchers, it depends on us. We are all we have, but all we need. So let us trudge through the thick viscous mud of disease until our eyes fall upon the rising sun of our cure. Cancers guns are loaded, and we are the target. But we are ready. Ready to fight for victory. Victory. Victory at all costs. Victory in spite of all terror. Victory however long and hard the road may be. Victory. For without victory, there is no survival. I would like you all to think for a moment about any relatives or friends or anyone that matters a lot to you that have been affected by cancer. Think of how much they mean to you. That is your reason to fight. Today we fight. Tomorrow we fight. And we will continue to do so until all this agony is ceased. Before it’s too late.","d":"2015-01-27","t":"The Christian Blandford Fund – a 13 year old’s perspective","u":"/2015/01/27/the-christian-blandford-fund-a-13-year-olds-perspective/"},{"c":"We had a great day handing out presents at St George’s helped by the wonderful play specialists. The photos are on facebook here and also here where parents can download hi-res versions using the username guest and the password Christmas. Thank you very much for the very talented photographer Hugh Miller who gave up his time and skills in order to help us out. I received a nice e-mail after one of our Santa visits which i thought it would be good to share, I have changed the names to maintain anonymity. I just wanted to say “thank-you” on behalf of my son Jack, who received a lovely teddy. It really cheered him up, as did the visit from father xmas and his little helper: his eyes lit up when he saw them (I think he was thinking “oh no, the door’s opening, someone in a uniform is coming to do something nasty to me”) and was lovely for his dad and mum to see. As you can appreciate, being in an isolation room at xmas is pretty grim for a kid. Jack has been poorly all his life and is a “regular” at St George’s, despite living 60 miles away in West Sussex. The distance makes it particularly difficult as his brother, Henry, who he is very close to, has to stay at his Grandma’s during his many stays at St George’s, so we are all split up as a family. Luckily, we were put on “home leave” for xmas but must return next Friday. I think your charity is brilliant. As soon as I read the poster in the posh new parents room I could tell that the person who wrote it had a real insight into life for kids and their families in this situation that only personal experience (unfortunately) can bring. Merry xmas to you all and keep up the good work!","d":"2014-12-29","t":"Father Christmas at St George’s","u":"/2014/12/29/father-christmas-at-st-georges/"},{"c":"Christian loves to play the piano and write his own music, this year he entered a competition run by Sevenoaks School to write a Christmas Carol for a 5 part choir. The winners and runners up in each age group got their song sung by the incredible London based Cantus Ensemble at the Christmas Carol concert in the school . We are very proud that Christian’s lovely song got awarded 2nd place in the year 7 and 8 competition. It is called The Snow and all the words, piano music and vocals were written by him.","d":"2014-12-07","t":"Christian’s Christmas carol sung by The Cantus Ensemble at Sevenoaks School","u":"/2014/12/07/christians-christmas-carol-sung-by-the-cantus-ensemble-at-sevenoaks-school/"},{"c":"We strongly feel that our goal is to improve the life of children staying in hospitals. Sometimes that means spending money on buying things that make life better, but sometimes it involves putting pressure (gentle or otherwise) on authorities to make changes that we feel are important. All of the trustees in The Christian Blandford Fund, Peter, Claudia, Amy and Darren, have had children who have spent considerable time in NHS hospitals and have strong views of how to help others in that situation. One of our big concerns was the quality of the food in the wards at St George’s. At the Royal Marsden there was a wonderful chef and an assistant who took individual orders from each of the kids and made it freshly for them. At St George’s there was a trolley with pre cooked and reheated food similar to what you would get in an airplane, unsurprisingly much of the food was left untouched by the kids. For some reason this has been a battle that has taken a long time to win, but we are delighted to have finally made some progress. Together with Samuel’s Charity we were ready to pay for the cost of having a couple of hostesses to take the children’s orders, so the food could be prepared in the kitchens. The hospital, fortunately, managed to find the funds from elsewhere and the quality of the food is now considerably improved. We are delighted, well done to Martin, Samuel’s dad, who did so much to push this forward. There are big plans afoot to make improvements at St George’s and we hope that our voice continues to be heard so the things that we feel need to be improved upon are prioritised.","d":"2014-10-21","t":"Food Glorious Food","u":"/2014/10/21/food-glorious-food/"},{"c":"We have just bought some of these great PS Vitas with some cool games for the children on the wards at St George’s. Time moves slowly when you’re in bed all day in hospital, hopefully these will add a bit of fun!","d":"2014-10-17","t":"PS Vitas for the wards","u":"/2014/10/17/ps-vitas-for-the-ward/"},{"c":"Claudia, Darren and Amy are meeting with the lovely people at Momentum today. They have done some great work at Kingston Hospital and we are hoping to work with them on improvements to St George’s. I have been playing some more with the website. I have now gone right through the Christian’s Story Page and made every day an individual entry on the blog, rather than a long page. This means that I can now filter out all the fund raising posts, which I have linked to in the menu or all the posts about Christian, which is what the new Christian’s Story menu link now points to. It now makes it possible to link to any individual story or fund raising event and share it on Facebook or Twitter. I think it’s time I stopped fiddling now.","d":"2014-10-15","t":"Momentum Meeting","u":"/2014/10/15/momentum-meeting/"},{"c":"I have had a bit of time to work on the Christian’s Story Page and added a new event which I omitted the first time around…. 28th September 2007 Last week Christian had a bone scan and a CT scan and the results came back today, he is clear of cancer! We’ve got a long way to go and he is still in danger from the treatment, his kidney function, for example, is still not what it should be, but we are obviously very relieved. There was a strange moment in the school car park when he started back at school. A whisper went around the crowds of parents and teachers when they saw Christian, and as he stood there looking confused, a round of applause went up from everybody around him.","d":"2014-10-12","t":"More edits to Christian’s Story","u":"/2014/10/12/more-edits-to-christians-story/"},{"c":"I received an email yesterday from a lady whose 4 year old son has just had a relapse from a Wilm’s Tumour, a very similar situation we were in a few years ago. She told me that Christian’s story has given her a glimmer of hope during a terrible and frightening time. The fact that it has helped at least one person has given me the inspiration to go through Christian’s Story page and get rid of dead links and break the text up with some pictures. The fact is, children do recover from relapsed cancer, and Christian is living proof, we sincerely wish the best for Karen and her family.","d":"2014-10-11","t":"Updated Christian’s Story page","u":"/2014/10/11/updated-christians-story-page/"},{"c":"Claudia is with Christian at Great Ormond Street Hospital today for a biennial check up on his kidney. It’s a good reminder of how lucky we are.","d":"2014-10-07","t":"Quick visit to Great Ormond Street","u":"/2014/10/07/quick-visit-to-great-ormond-street/"},{"c":"We have been working on the new website which should be a lot easier for us to update and for people to navigate and share. Please have a look around and, if you have a moment, test it out, try sharing a story on facebook or twitter, for example. The Home Page is a good start. Also, if you have not joined the mailing list, please do so, we promise any contact will be short infrequent, and we will never share the mailing list with anybody else. I’d like to thank Will Jane for helping me with getting this site live and the lovely people at Gravity Global for offering to host the site for free!","d":"2014-10-06","t":"The New Site is now live","u":"/2014/10/06/the-new-site-is-now-live/"},{"c":"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 NHS hospitals. More info on what we do and things we’ve done. Christian Blandford has been through cancer twice. He was diagnosed with a clear cell sarcoma of the kidney, a rare and aggressive form of childhood cancer, in January 2005 when he was just 18 months old. After a grueling year of treatment, he was given the all clear but unfortunately relapsed in November 2006 when the cancer spread to a bone in his leg. His second round of surgery, chemo and radiotherapy in 2007 was even more intensive and demanding than the first, but thankfully Christian has been out of remission since September 2012. He’s a happy young man who enjoys playing piano, writing computer games, cooking and playing with his boxer dog, Roxy and his little sister, Jessica. You can read more about Christian and his treatment here. Latest Blog Post – see more here Good luck in the London Marathon Jamie This Sunday, our friend Jamie Williams will be lining up at the start of the London Marathon to run 26.2 miles for The Christian Blandford Fund! Jamie with Pete and Rob and the CBF TriathlonJamie has been training hard for months, long runs in all weathers, early mornings, and the kind of quiet dedication that… April 24, 2026 · Fund Raising The Christian Blandford Fund is an UK registered charity (number 1139614) – Charity commission details If you wish to contact us, click the button below: Contact Us","d":"","t":"About Us","u":"/about-us/"},{"c":"This is the original blog we wrote to keep our family and friends informed when Christian was being treated   Christian was born on 19th July 2003 at 10.25am Monday 31st January 2005 Christian had a lump in his tummy so we took him to Jake McKinnon, the pediatrician who originally diagnosed his reflux a year ago. He was immediately concerned and we took him for an ultrasound and an x-ray which seemed to confirm a Wilms tumor in the kidney. Blood and urine tests were taken. Keith Holmes is a pediatric surgeon who happened to be consulting at the same surgery on that day and he agreed that this was the most likely scenario and referred us to the Royal Marsden Hospital. Tuesday 1st February 2005 We took him to the Marsden where we met Kathy Prichard-Jones, she is the professor of pediatric oncology and happens to run a large team of researchers who research Wilms tumors. Wilms tumors have been “curable” for 20 years or so and 90% of children apparently make a full recovery. The treatment is chemotherapy for a few weeks, followed by surgery to remove the kidney and growth followed by more chemotherapy. He would need to have a biopsy and a CT scan to confirm that it is Wilms tumor and that it hasn’t spread anywhere else (unlikely from the fact that he is acting happy). Wednesday 2nd February 2005 Keith Holmes performs a biopsy at St. George’s and fits a portacath (a direct access to the bloodstream for drugs and removal of blood). Christian woke up a bit upset but was happy for most of the afternoon. Thursday 3rd February 2005 Went back to St. George’s because a urine infection had been detected from Monday’s tests. Antibiotics administered intravenously and orally. Christian a bit niggly today… Friday 4th February 2005 (Very) Good news – CT scan confirms no spreading of cancer into lungs or, in fact, anywhere else.(Slightly) Bad news – biopsy shows sign of muscle in the tissue, this means it is either a variant of Wilms tumor (fetal rhabdomyoblastic) or it is a completely different cancer (rhabdomyosarcoma). This other cancer would be treated in the same way as a Wilm’s tumor so Kathy Pritchard-Jones suggests we start on the chemotherapy straight away. It would be very unusual for rhabdomyosarcoma not to have spread out of the kidney so Kathy still feels that the Wilm’s tumor is the far more likely problem. They will do more analysis of the biopsy to help decide. Christian had his first lot of Chemotherapy at the Royal Marsden at about 5.00pm. Tuesday 8th February 2005 10.00am – Christian is not reacting very well to the chemotherapy. One of the side effects is a sore jaw, and this seems to be making him uncomfortable when he eats and drinks. The doctors were a bit concerned so we brought him to St. George’s Hospital last night and Claudia and he stayed the night. He has been on a drip to rehydrate him and we are now waiting for more news. 10.55am – We are taking him back to the Royal Marsden for further checks. Wednesday 9th February 2005 I stayed overnight with Christian at the Royal Marsden. The main concern is that he is not eating or drinking. In order for him not to get dehydrated he is on a drip and they are considering putting a tube down his throat so they can nutrients into him. It’s not as bad as it sounds, he’s a bit niggly, but not too uncomfortable and is sleeping well. Claudia is going to stay there with him tonight. We are not sure how long he will stay in hospital, he will be allowed home when he is drinking on his own. He is now neutropenic (has low blood white cells) from the chemotherapy so he can not have paracetamol. He has been on Codeine and Morphine as pain killers and will hopefully not maintain a recreational taste for them. Thursday 10th February 2005 The good news is that he has started eating and drinking, mostly chocolate and biscuits, but at least he is feeding himself. We should be able to take him home tomorrow. The less good news is that the pathologists have finished deliberating and have decided that it is, after all, not a Wilm’s tumour. They have decided that what he has is a clear cell sarcoma of the kidney. This is a lot less common than a Wilm’s tumour (about 5% of Kidney tumours).This kind of cancer is a lot more prone to spreading, we know it hasn’t spread to the lungs but now they need to check that it hasn’t spread to his brain or bones. They will need to do a bone scan, a CT head scan and take a sample of bone marrow. Kathy Pritchard-Jones feels that from his behaviour it is very unlikely that any spreading has occurred. All these test will be done next week. Assuming no spreading the prognosis is very similar to Wilm’s tumour but he will need a far longer period of treatment post operation (probably about a year of chemotherapy). They will bring the surgery forward to reduce the risk of the cancer spreading before surgery. The date currently suggested is the 23rd February 2005. He will probably need to stay at St. George’s Hospital for about a week after the operation. Friday 11th February 2005 We are still hoping to take him home later today as he is off the drip. He has a bit of a rash on his face from an adverse reaction to the drug that he was given to reduce his blood pressure. He is due a course of chemotherapy, and they want to monitor his reaction to that as well as how he fares without the fluids drip. If all is well we’ll bring him home, Henry will be happy to see him again! Saturday 12th February 2005 The doctors decided to keep Christian in for further examination as his blood pressure was a bit high. The good news is that he was released earlier today and we are now home. Sunday 13th February 2005 I almost didn’t update the site today because there is no real news. But I guess you may like to know that Christian has been in a lovely mood for most of the day. (Auntie) Sam and (Uncle) Paul came around and he spent most of the day happy and was very excited with his dancing Dora the Explorer doll. Thursday 17th February 2005 You may remember that Christian was due in hospital today to have a head scan and have a sample of bone marrow taken. He needs a general anesthetic for these and he unfortunately is not well enough to have it. He has a bit of a temperature and his breathing is a bit too fast, they suspect it’s a chest infection. He has been given antibiotics and will be staying in the Royal Marsden for a night or two for further observations. We hope to reschedule those two tests for when he’s better. We still hope to go ahead with the bone scan tomorrow. Next Wednesday’s operation should still go ahead as planned. Friday 18th February 2005 Christian has still been a bit unwell today so he’s been given antibiotics. The good news is that he managed to stay still for the CT head scan without anesthetic, and that was negative. The bone scan and bone marrow sample will have to wait until Monday. His chemotherapy will wait until tomorrow too when , hopefully, he’ll feel better. Christian will soon look just like his dad; his hair has started to fall out so I’m taking my clippers in tomorrow and he’ll get a grade 1! Monday 21st February 2005 Christian has been much better for the last couple of days. The antibiotics seem to have cleared up the infection and he is eating and drinking, if somewhat selectively. He had the operation today to take a sample of bone marrow and we should get the results for that tomorrow. He also had a tube put down his nose to make it easier to feed him, this lasted about 5 minutes after he came to, when he pulled it out. Oh well; he’s eating well at the moment so it’s not a major problem, we may have to try that again. Unfortunately there is not enough time for the bone scan now until after he recovers from the operation on Wednesday (when the kidney and tumour get removed). We should get the results from the bone marrow tomorrow. We should take comfort from the fact that the doctors are very confident that the cancer hasn’t spread and I guess the fact that he was playing football with his Nana this evening should confirm that. Tomorrow we are taking him to St George’s in the afternoon were he is getting some tests to prepare him for Wednesday’s operation. We should be able to bring him home for a night before taking him back to the hospital were Keith Holmes will perform the surgery. After the operation he may stay there or be moved somewhere else for recovery. By the way, I did take my clippers in yesterday and cropped his hair, and he does look like his dad. He also looks like he lives in a caravan and has a dog on a string. I’ll take a photo of him tomorrow and share it with you… Tuesday 22nd February 2005 We took him from the Royal Marsden to St George’s this morning for some blood tests. He will have the operation there tomorrow morning. We are now home and as he was in such a good mood I took some photos to show you the new haircut (here they are).By the way, Claudia received this from a family friend in the US who is a cancer specialist… From: Terrie Pustilnik [mailto:tbpmd@swbell.net] Sent: 19 February 2005 2005 17:35 To: ‘Claudia Blandford’ Cc: harold.behrman@yale.edu; bob.parish@enscitech.com Subject: RE: Christian I hope Christian’s tests have come back OK. I am praying and thinking about him daily. There is a very recent article looking at clear cell sarcoma of the kidney in the Journal of Clinical Oncology (deb vol 22). They had 40 children and were trying to compare 2 different ways of doing chemotherapy. The chemotherapy that they were using was vincristine, doxorubicin and dactinomycin. The patients ranged in stage from 1 through 4. (Stage is determined by seeing if there has been any spread of the cancer or not). Stage I is early and Stage IV means there has been spread . Patients had surgery and usually some radiation therapy to the area where the cancer was following surgery. It appears that the longer chemotherapy treatment was associated with a longer survival time. The overall 8 year survival was very good at 87%. This means that even though your son may have an aggressive cancer, the odds are in his favor that he is going to do well. (But he may be in for a fair amount of treatment). Christian is hopefully stage 1 or 2, so this sounds positive. Wednesday 23rd February 2005 The surgery seems to have gone very well, Christian was in theatre for 5 hours. The surgeon, Keith Holmes is confident he removed all the tumour. It was 10cm x 15cm and 1.1Kg, almost 10% of his body weight. He is now recovering at the Pediatric Intensive Care Unit at St. George’s. I have come home for a couple of hours and will be going back to spend the night with him there. Claudia will be home tonight. Thursday 24th February 2005 Christian is now out of intensive care and into his own room in St George’s. The phone number there is 0704 6200076 (x3517), Claudia is there tonight. He is sleeping lots and whimpering a little bit but is being kept comfortable by pain killers. Most of the tubes and monitors that he was on yesterday have gone so he looks a lot less scary. We may be moving him back to The Royal Marsden or The Portland in the next couple of days if he is well enough. The prize for “best tough love e-mail” goes to Neil Gillespie for the following… Great to hear all went well. Just imagine if it was you and 10% of your body weight. They’d need a crane! Neil As if coping with cancer in your child wasn’t enough…. Saturday 26th February 2005 We have, remarkably, been sent home. To quote the surgeon, “it is a record breaking recovery from a five hour operation”.                               Monday 28th February 2005 A few people have asked me how Henry is coping with all of this. This evening, just after I put him to bed I asked him if anything was worrying him. Henry said “Yes, when Christian grows up will he be a man without any hair even on his legs?”. I explained that after the medicine stops, his hair will come back and by the time he is three he will be back to normal. He seemed happy with this but then said something else was worrying him, I asked him what it was and he replied “When I grow up I don’t know if I want to be an astronaut or a normal man, because I want to be both”. Now there is a conundrum. Christian is well. A bit delicate, but recovering well.   Thursday 3rd March Christian was due back at the Royal Marsden today for a bone scan. The idea was to give him a sedative and then he would fall asleep and would lie still while the scan took place. The doctors even hoped that he would remain sleeping as they inserted a nasal gastric tube. Unfortunately two doses of sedative were not enough and Claudia had to hold him down as the scan took place. The good news is that the bone scan was all clear and the results of the marrow test last week were clear too. So all the tests have been done and there has been no spreading of the cancer that they can see outside of the kidney. The pathologist’s report on the kidney also came back today. It confirmed the fact that it was a stage 2 clear cell sarcoma. The plan for post operation treatment has now been drawn up. He will be taking 3 different types of chemotherapy drugs, one which is weekly for 6 weeks and the other two are every three weeks for 6 months to all run concurrently. There will be no need for radiotherapy. Bearing in mind we were expecting chemotherapy for a year this is very good news. He took one dose today and next Friday he will take the first triple dose. All the treatment is being done as an outpatient at the Royal Marsden. Christian has lost quite a lot weight recently, which is why the doctors are keen to get nutrients into him with the tube up his nose. He has, however, started eating again and we are hoping this continues so he builds up his strength for next Friday. Tuesday 8th March Just a quick note to say that Christian has been very happy for the last couple of days. He is eating and drinking well and is looking much better. He is a lot stronger than he has been for the last month and is walking around and playing normally. He is very giggly and has spent a lot of the time looking like this… On a separate note, Claudia and I would like to thank all of you for your kind words, generous gifts and kind hearted actions over the last few weeks. We are very fortunate to have so many thoughtful friends and such loving families. Claudia is panicking that she has not written any thank you letters, but I guess that’s Claudia…     Thursday 17th March I have started to get calls from people asking me to update the site and I guess I shouldn’t just write when there is a problem. Christian is still pretty good, he had a couple of niggly days after the chemo, but he is now pretty happy most of the time. For some reason he has taken to waking up at 5.30 – 6.30 am every day, but that is not a major problem. He is going in on Friday for a dose of Vincristrine (the weekly chemo drug) and we are hoping he continues to be a robust as he has been so far. Monday 21st March Christian had a high temperature yesterday so I took him to St George’s. I spent the night with him there and he has now been transferred to the Royal Marsden after much pleading from us. He has to stay in hospital for a couple of days as he needs intravenous antibiotics. The chemotherapy knocks the white blood cell count which makes it difficult for him to fight infections without help. We are hoping he’ll be back home later this week. Claudia is currently at the Royal Marsden with him. Wednesday 23rd March Claudia brought him home today. He seems a bit better; as he is going in to the Marsden tomorrow for chemo, they were happy for him to spend the night at home. Thursday 24th March Claudia took Christian down to the Royal Marsden today for his chemotherapy. Unfortunately he’s not very well so they have decided to keep him in. I’m on my way down there to take over and Claudia will be home tonight. Friday 25th March I have just brought Christian home. He has a nasty cough but they think that it is viral, not bacterial and therefore not any more dangerous than if he wasn’t neutropenic. Claudia is taking him in for a checkup on Sunday morning to make sure that he is still OK. Henry and I will be going off together for a week’s father/son bonding on a ski trip which was booked months ago. I thought about canceling it but Claudia wouldn’t let me, and if she did, Henry would never forgive me! Sunday 3rd April Henry and I returned from the slopes today. Unfortunately Christian has not been well in our absence. The portacath (a tube fitted to an artery near the heart to allow access the the bloodstream) has become infected. He and Claudia have spent all of the week at The Royal Marsden where he has been on antibiotics. He needs a further 10 days of treatment which, apparently, he has to finish off at St George’s, apparently they need the beds at the Royal Marsden for chemotherapy treatment. We are not very happy about this as The Royal Marsden is far more comfortable and, we feel, he gets far better care there. We are trying to find an alternative hospital or another arrangement, for example a private nurse to come to the house and administer the antibiotics 4 times a day. We should find out tomorrow what the plan is. The good news is that the antibiotics seem to be working and he is very happy in himself at the moment. He has had an nasal gastric tube fitted which looks a bit scary but is providing him with lots of nutrition overnight to build up his strength. Tuesday 5th April Christian came home today. He has been given an oral antibiotic instead of an intravenous one and, as such, he does not need to go into hospital for it. He seems in pretty good spirits, if a little bit disorientated. Tuesday 19th April I’ve just got back from a night with Christian on the ward at St George’s so forgive me if this all comes out as a jumbled mess. All weekend Christian was very happy, eating and drinking well and generally having fun. Sunday night something hit him and he was throwing up during the night. He was due to go to The Royal Marsden for a checkup and some drugs to boost his white blood cell count on Monday so we went early and spent all day there. He had a slightly high temperature and he was given some antibiotics. By the end of the day he seemed a bit better so we were sent home with the strict instructions to phone if his temperature “spiked” again. By 9.00pm his temperature was up to 38.7 and however hard I tapped the thermometer it wouldn’t go lower. As Claudia spent a lot of Sunday night up with Christian, I took him to the ST George’s Hospital. He has now been given two more types of antibiotics until they get results of blood tests which show what particular bug he has. One of the concerns is that he may have either an infection in his portacath or the same infection has come back from a couple of weeks ago. If this is the case he may need to have an operation to have it replaced. If, however, it is a different infection it may be treatable at home by either oral antibiotics or by once a day intravenous antibiotics that the community nurse would administer. The care at St George’s was very good last night and although it is not as comfortable as the Royal Marsden it wasn’t too bad. Friday 22nd April We got back from St George’s yesterday. Christian is on intravenous antibiotics once a day which are being administered by a community nurse. He has the same bug as before (an infection of the portacath) but the doctors are hoping that a full intravenous course will clear it up. If not he will have to have an operation to remove and replace his portacath and will be back at St George’s for a week or so. I am doing a 10km run on the 3rd July (details here). I have been wondering what would be the best place to raise money for and have decided after our stay at St George’s that the money will have most effect there. There is a ward called the Pinkney Ward which takes most of the kids with Cancer and they have their own charity administered by the very efficient Sister in charge. You can stipulate where you want the money spent and, depending on how much I raise, I have some good ideas. First on the list is some high chairs (there are none) and black out blinds (Christian wakes as soon as the sun comes up) but I have plenty of other ideas if I raise more. Morgan Stanley, my very understanding employers, have offered to match anything I raise up to £2000. Claudia and I will personally do the same, this means your generous donation could be worth 4 times what you give. To offer some money send me an e mail or even better sign the guest book to publicise your generosity and encourage others. Thanks in advance… Friday 29th April 05 Christian has been home all week, is eating and drinking well and seems very happy. We are waiting for the antibiotics course to finish this weekend to see if his infection comes back or not. If it does come back, there may be no option but to return to St George’s to have his portacath removed and replaced. Let’s keep our fingers crossed. The good news is that the sponsorship is going fantastically well. Claudia’s company Porcelanosa have very generously offered to match sponsorship for £2,000 too. Morgan Stanley will match £2,000 per employee involved so we may persuade them to match all the money raised by getting more of my colleagues to run! All good stuff. Sunday 2nd May Good news and bad news: the good news is that Christian has been in a fantastic mood for the last couple of days, he was very taken with his cousins Elizabeth and Thomas who came around for a barbecue yesterday (Elena took some photos here and here). The bad news is that the blood cultures from Friday’s blood tests show that the bug in his portacath has not been cleared up. He will need the portacath removed in an operation, then a series of antibiotics and then the portacath replaced in a different operation. He will probably go into St George’s tomorrow for the first operation. His hemoglobin levels are a bit low too so he’s going in to St George’s for a blood transfusion this afternoon, which will take a few hours. Saturday 7th May Christian had an operation on Thursday to take out the portacath and came out on the same day. He’s got a canular in his hand (a needle and tube) which is being left in as he needs more antibiotics. We are taking him back to St. George’s this afternoon for the last dose and they also want to take some bloods to make sure the infection has cleared up. Claudia is taking him to the Royal Marsden on Monday to discuss the next stage and we’ll find out when the portacath is going to be replaced then Wednesday 11th May We were in St George’s today for Christian to have an operation to have a new portacath fitted. He is now home and all is fine. The only drama was that an antibiotic was given too quickly (it should have been an infusion over an hour and it wasn’t) and he got “red man syndrome”. This meant he swelled up and was his skin was very itchy, some drugs soon cleared up the problem. Claudia is taking Christian back to the Royal Marsden tomorrow for a triple dose of chemotherapy. He is now just having the three weekly triple dose, and no longer has the weekly single dose. The good news is that we are now halfway through his treatment. All down hill from here… Friday 27th MayWe were hoping to be heading to our villa in Spain tomorrow for a week’s relaxation over half term. Unfortunately Christian’s neutrophils are a bit low. This means that even though he is very happy at the moment, he is susceptible to infections, and a it’s not advisable for him to be too far from home. This means our villa is free for the next two weeks and we’ll be happy if anybody can make use of it. The details are here www.villabegur.com. A small contribution to the sponsorship fund may be required depending on financial circumstances! Saturday 4th June Christian went to the Royal Marsden yesterday for a triple dose of chemotherapy and some tests . As he is now over 12kg (just) he had the full dose, until now he has been on 70%. It seems to have hit him fairly hard and he’s been a bit sickly today not being able to keep food or drink down for long. We’re hoping this doesn’t last long as if there’s a danger of him getting dehydrated he’ll have to be admitted to hospital so he can get IV fluids. The good news is that both tests that he had yesterday (a chest x-ray and an ultra sound) were clear. Sunday 19th June We made it through the difficult bit after the chemotherapy by giving Christian water from a syringe every 10 minutes, which he managed to keep down. He is now happy again and is eating and drinking well. There are now only a couple of weeks left to the run! As you can see from the total at the top of this page the sponsorship is going fantastically well. This will make a real difference to the comfort of the children being treated at St George’s. I have discussed the money with the sister in charge and the ideas so far are : 1. New curtains and blackout blinds 2. High Chairs 3. Bed Pans (they can’t get any on their budget!) 4. New child friendly decor or pictures 5. Children’s cutlery and plates 6. New toys and budget to replace toys when they get damaged Thanks again to all of those people who have generously pledged sponsorship. It’s not too late if you have not yet got around to it, just send me an e mail by clicking here or even better sign the guest book by clicking here. Because there are now 9 people running from Morgan Stanley, they will match up to £18,000! so your donation could be worth twice what you give. Monday 3rd July First things first, Christian has been pretty well recently hence the lack of updates. His hair is growing back a bit and his speech is coming on very well. In true Blandford/Parish style, it is now tricky to keep him quiet. Yesterday was the 10km run that I have been talking about. I managed to drag myself around the full distance in a leisurely 56 minutes, and have been barely able to move since.   If you were kind enough to sponsor me please send a cheque to me at home. I am Gift Aiding the whole amount raised as though it was a donation from me to save on paper work so please make all cheques payable to me. If you would prefer to make a cheque direct to the charity (St George’s Charitable Foundation) please contact me for a gift aid declaration form. Thanks to your generosity and Morgan Stanley’s matching, the Pinkney ward at St George’s will receive over £45,000. It should make a real difference.   Friday 15th July Christian was due to be having his chemotherapy at the Royal Marsden today. Unfortunately he has had a high temperature since yesterday afternoon which is a sign of infection. Claudia took him to the Royal Marsden where they started him on antibiotics and then brought him to St George’s where I am spending the night with him at the, now famous, Pinkney ward. He has had a bad day with Claudia and was quite upset most of the day. Fortunately for me, by the time I arrived the antibiotics had kicked in. They have taken bloods and will grow cultures to try to identify the bug so they can decide what the best antibiotic is for the job. That will probably take a couple of days. We were hoping to go to Begur in Spain Monday, and my mum and sisters and all their families were joining us there next week for another week. We are still hoping to get there for the second week to join my family. Most of the money has come in now, thank you very much. If you were kind enough to sponsor me and haven’t got around to paying please either send me a cheque or e-mail me for my bank detail for direct transfer. For what it’s worth Christian finally fell asleep tonight at 9.00pm when the sun started to go down. I wish those blackout blinds were already here… Sunday 17th July We’ve had a couple of nights at St George’s with Christian and he has been put on oral antibiotics and sent home. It took that much time because the doctors wanted to make sure that it was not a serious infection which would need more heavy duty antibiotics and he kept “spiking” temperature. We will be going to the Royal Marsden tomorrow and if he is well enough they will give him the chemotherapy he didn’t have Friday. Henry is very excited because now that it’s school holidays he’ll be coming along, and they’ve got great toys there. Claudia keeps bleating on about the fact that she and Christian were taken from The Royal Marsden to St George’s by ambulance and I haven’t mentioned it. Apparently it was very exciting. While I was at St George’s, I spoke to Francis, the nurse who will administer the money we have raised. As the amount raised has grown, its effect will become more significant. They, apparently, got turned down a year ago for a grant to improve the treatment room which is seriously in need of modernisation. This will now be possible. They are also getting a new waiting room (until now parents have had to wait in the kids play room until a bed is available). Whilst the room has been allocated for the waiting room, the money wasn’t there for chairs and curtains and so it has been delayed. This should now be taken care of. Monday 18th July 2005 The chemotherapy went ahead at The Royal Marsden today. Unfortunately there was a complication with one of the three drugs. One of them is a slow drip over 4 hours and the needle slipped out of his portacath in the last few minutes and leaked into him. Bizarrely enough the chemotherapy is far more dangerous out of the bloodstream than in it and so Christian will have to stay in overnight so he can be monitored. He needs to have cream applied every 2 hours, it will feel, to him, like a burn beneath the skin. Claudia will be spending the night with him but we have been told he should be released in the morning. We hope so as tomorrow is his second birthday. We have no real plans as we were hoping to be in Spain but we’ll certainly have more fun at home than at the Hospital… Tuesday 19th July Well he’s home. We need to pop back to the hospital tomorrow to make sure he’s recovering from the chemo leak but are still hoping to fly to Spain in the evening . He’s enjoying his birthday so far and we’re having a little party for him later. Tuesday 2nd August 2005 We made it!                     Sunday 18th August Christian has been very well recently, hence the lack of updates. His last chemotherapy is scheduled in less than two weeks, which is an important milestone that we’ve been looking forward to. I have finally collected all the sponsorship money at the final amount raised is over £47,000. Thanks very much to all of you for your support. I have received a couple of letters from St. George’s which were very nice, they are here andhere. Sunday 23rd October Christian had his last chemo three weeks ago. He got a temperature on Thursday evening when he was still neutropenic from the chemotherapy. We took him into St George’s and he has spent the weekend in and out, getting regular intravenous antibiotics. The doctors think that it is probably viral and will therefore not be a problem for his body to fight but it takes 2-3 days to discover if an infection is bacterial. The protocol is to treat it as though it were bacterial (hence the antibiotics) until proven otherwise. Hopefully by this evening no signs of bacteria on the blood samples taken on Thursday will mean that he is in the clear and we can stop the course of antibiotics. He was quite poorly on Thursday but has been fine for the last couple of days. Hopefully this will be the last time that we have to go into hospital for something like this… On a side note, it is very rewarding to go back to St George’s and speak to the nurses who are so happy with the money I was given as sponsorship. The money has not yet been spent but I am convinced that it will really help. Thanks again for your generosity. Tuesday 15th November All is good in the Blandford household at the moment, Christian has become a dancer. January 1st 2006 Friday 10th November 2006 After a year of peace, Christian had a Bone Scan on Wednesday because he has been having a sore knee. It appears that there is a “an area of increased uptake on the Lower Femur of the left knee”. The most likely reason is that the same cancer he had has come back in his bones. He is booked in for a MRI on Monday and a CT scan on Tuesday, after that they will hopefully be able to determine the best next step. He is likely to need a biopsy and then secondary chemotherapy. Sorry to be the bearer of bad news…. Wednesday 15th November 2006 The good news is that the MRI scan and the CT scan results show that there has been no spreading anywhere beyond his lower left femur (knee). In order to confirm the fact that it is a return of the clear cell sarcoma he needs to have a bone biopsy which will be done in Stanmore Hospital early next week. The results from that should take a couple of days, but they would be very surprised if it’s anything else. Christian is already booked into The Marsden next Thursday to fit a Hickman line (like the portacath he had before but with two points of access) and they will take a sample of bone marrow at that time to check if there has been any spreading there. The exact protocol for treatment will be decided after the results of the bone biopsy but is likely to be every three weeks with alternate drugs. One of these will be an outpatient treatment and the other he will have to stay in overnight. After a series of courses (in about 18 weeks) he will be admitted for intensive chemotherapy which will be administered as an inpatient at the Royal Marsden over two weeks. Claudia and I would like to thank all our friends and family for their support, it really makes a difference. I will try to keep this site updated with the technical stuff as quickly as possible. Friday 17th November 2006 We met with the Doctors at the Royal Marsden today to discuss Christian’s treatment. He will start his chemo shortly after the biopsy and the fitting of the Hickman line next week, maybe as early as Friday 24th. His chemo will be a lot more aggressive than the last treatment with a strong dose every three weeks for 21 weeks. At the end of this he will get a very intensive dose which will completely wipe out his bone marrow and he will then need a bone marrow transplant. We will have prepared for this by taking some of his healthy bone marrow out in a few weeks. Christian will need to be admitted for this final dose and is likely to be in hospital and very sick for a month or so before he recovers. After this other treatment may be required, including radiotherapy and/or surgery. Christian is now strong and healthy and we are confident he is in excellent hands, this gives us hope for the upcoming year.   Wednesday 22nd November 2006 Christian had the bone biopsy today, it all went fine and they got a good sample. We will not get the results until next week so the Hickman line insertion is going to wait until then. He was in pretty good form all day, the biopsy was quite intrusive so he’ll be a bit sore for a few days. Wednesday 29th November 2006 Christian had a Hickman Line fitted today, they also took a sample of bone marrow from his hips for testing. The operation went fine and he is now at home and relatively happy, if a bit concerned about the tube going into his chest… The results from the Bone biopsy came back today and unfortunately they were “inconclusive”. This means that he will need to go back in and get another biopsy before treatment can begin, we haven’t got a date for this yet. Tomorrow we are going into the Royal Marsden to see Cathy Pritchard Jones who is back from holiday, she wants a couple of tests redone including the chest and leg x-rays. He is also going to get a kidney test (as one of the chemo drugs could effect it) and some blood tests. On a lighter note, Henry lost his first tooth today. Photos to come… Monday 4th December We took Christian to Stanmore Orthopedic Hospital today for another bone biopsy. It all went fine and the surgeons are confident that they got a decent sample this time. He is a bit sore but was allowed home. The results may take over a week but we are (sort of) hoping they come quicker so the treatment can begin. Friday 8th December The biopsy result finally came through today and the growth in Christian’s leg was confirmed to be a reoccurrence of the Clear Cell Sarcoma. We are taking him for his first Chemo on Sunday and he will stay in overnight so they can keep an eye on him. He may be home during the day on Monday but will have to go back for a second drug on Tuesday. His treatment will be every three weeks after that for 18 weeks followed by the “high dose” chemotherapy. His is recovering from the biopsy but is still a bit sore and isn’t walking on it yet. Other than that he has been in very fine spirits.         Monday 11th December We have just got back from the Royal Marsden. Christian had two different Chemotherapy drugs, Etoposide and Carboplatin. Carboplatin is given over an hour. Etoposide is also given as an hour drip but for 3 consecutive days, so he had it on Sunday, today and is due to go back for the last dose tomorrow. Yesterday he had a great day, Henry came with us and the staff at the Royal Marsden put on a pantomime in the afternoon which was very good. Before anybody asks, I was not drafted in at the last moment… He slept well last night and has been very happy until the nausea kicked in this morning. We have a couple of different drugs which will, hopefully keep the nausea under control. The next dose will come in the new year when he will have the Etoposide again, this time he will have it with Cyclophosphamide which has to be given overnight with a hydrating drip. Tuesday 12th December We came in to the Royal Marsden today for chemo and Christian temperature “spiked”. It would seem that he has an infection of some kind, probably viral. He has been given intravenous antibiotics and will need to stay overnight as the next dose is due at 1.00am. From tomorrow, it will be due every 24 hours so we may be able to go home. Wednesday 13th December Christian responded well to the antibiotics and we are now home. He needs another dose tomorrow and a community nurse will come to our house to administer it. Thursday 21st December Christian and I are currently at St. George’s. He got a temperature yesterday and as he is very neutropenic he can’t fight infection. He is on antibiotics and is happy so I am hoping we get home later today or tomorrow. His Hickman line has become slightly dislodged so they struggled to get blood out of it last night but they got there in the end. He may need that replaced soon. Christmas Eve 2006 We have been in and out of St. George’s for the last few days getting antibiotics for Christian. He has also had GCSF to boost his neutrophils and a platelet transfusion as they were very low. The last couple of nights we have brought him home to sleep and yesterday he was home most of the day, returning to the hospital three times for his antibiotics. He had the last dose of that this morning and we are waiting to see what his blood results are to see whether he needs more GCSF. Nanny and Granddad (June and Sandy) were here yesterday and the boys got their presents. Henry and I have been playing scalextrix all morning and Christian is very excited about his pink dancing car! it could be worse Danny was threatening me with buying him a pink fairy costume… Merry Christmas from all of us and thank you for all of your support over the last few weeks. It really has made a massive difference.     30th December 2006 Fortunately, Christmas was fairly peaceful. We had to visit the hospital every day in the morning to get some GCSF but that was much better than the 3 visits a day it looked at one point that we would be making. Christian’s hair started to fall out so we had to give him a haircut which he was a bit upset about. It didn’t seem to help when we told him that it looked like Daddy’s hair now. I can’t say I blame him. He still looks gorgeous though… 7th January 2007 Claudia here! Peter has instructed me to write the latest update so please bare with me as I am under a lot of pressure to live up to the usual high standards! Christian was fine over New Year, if a bit tired and emotional (or was that me?!). His Hickman Line is working fine now, and after a couple of transfusions (platelet and blood) he was fit enough to go in for his chemo at the Royal Marsden on Tuesday January 2nd as an in patient for three days. This all went as normal and Christian was on pretty good form, until we went to leave on Thursday and he promptly threw up everywhere. I was worried they might want to keep us in, but he seemed fine after that so we were allowed to leave. He was sick again in the night, but since then the various anti-nausea drugs they gave us seem to have kicked in. For now he seems in good spirits and even wolfed down a massive plate of spaghetti with grated cheese followed by 2 yogurts for his tea – a proud mum moment so I asked Pete to take a photo of it! As Pete mentioned in his e-mail he is arranging a 10K run on Sunday 4th March in Battersea. PLEASE do sign up for it – Even I am going to give it a go! All money raised goes towards the “St. George’s Charitable Foundation – Christian Blandford Paediatric Fund”. I can not tell you how much we (and other families) have benefited from the money that was raised in 2005 by all of you. The Pinkney Ward is now so much more comfortable! So, if like us you over indulged in too much food and wine over Christmas get your running kit on and start training!! Obviously no pressure, but you know our son is ill………………. To sign up for the run click here and fill in the online form and send Pete an e-mail here. 15th January 2007 Christian needs to have a stem cell harvest next week. It will involve him going into The Royal Marsden for a couple of days where he will get a new line fitted, unfortunately the Hickman Line will not work for this. They will take blood and draw stem cells which will then be frozen. Stem cells are special cells that can develop into either red cells, white cells or platelets and are normally produced by the bone marrow. When Christian has intensive chemotherapy in a few weeks he will not be able to produce any stem cells and they will use what they harvest next week. He should be in hospital for a couple of days. At the moment he is in pretty good form and seems to have reacted better to the last dose of chemotherapy than the first. His mouth is getting sore which could be a sign that he is developing mucositis, this is when the lining of the digestive system becomes inflamed, a common symptom of chemotherapy. His leg pains seem to have also got more frequent recently. We have an appointment with Kathy Pritchard Jones on Friday so we can discuss some of these issues with her. They are trying to fit him in for a bone scan and an x-ray for Friday too. The line up for the 10km run is looking good. Thanks very much to all those who have offered to sponsor so far and those who have are joining in. Even if you are not running please put a note in the diary and come along and cheer everybody along. All the team will have the same T-shirts so we should be easy to spot… 18th January 2007 Christian had a temperature on Tuesday so we have spent the last couple of days at St. George’s. It looks like it was an infection in his leg that caused the temperature. He has been on intravenous antibiotics which have done the trick and has been allowed home today. He will need to continue the course of antibiotics until next week but, as it’s a once a day dose, it can be given by the community nurses at home. The bone scan which was due tomorrow was brought forward to today and he and I were taken down to the Royal Marsden for it by ambulance. It was very exciting for both of us… We are seeing Kathy Pritchard Jones tomorrow to discuss his treatment and get the results of the bone scan. Kathy did pop into the radiology department this afternoon and at first glance, the scans looked good with no sign of the cancer spreading and a good reaction to the chemo so far. Good news at last…   24th January 2007 Claudia and Christian came home from the Royal Marsden today. Christian had a stem cell harvest done yesterday which went well, they got all they needed in one day, not two. He had a vascath fitted, which is a special line for the blood but that has already been removed. He is due for chemo and will be back at the Marsden tomorrow, Friday and Saturday as an outpatient. Once this is done we will be half way through this stage of the treatment.   5th February 2007 Christian has been on very good form for the last couple of weeks. On Wednesday he even went into nursery for the morning, they have made of photo montage for the wall of his day in! The last few days he has had a bit of a cold and his temperature spiked to 38.5 on Saturday afternoon. Because it was a week after chemo we had to assume he was neutrapenic and took him down to St George’s. One of the children at nursery came down with Chickenpox later in the week so Christian had to have an injection to protect him as, even though he has already had Chickenpox, the chemo will have killed his resistance to it. He has probably got a viral cold which is relatively harmless, but they have to follow protocol and treat it as an antibacterial infection. He is on intravenous antibiotics and they will keep him in for 48 hours while they try and grow cultures on a blood sample. If nothing is grown in that time and he doesn’t get another temperature and he seems well in himself, he will probably be allowed home. Dans is off to Montenegro to turn around the local property market. Our boys are really going to miss her. Here she is doing what she does best, making them laugh and spoiling them rotten… Tuesday 6th February We were hoping to come home today but Christian isn’t well enough. He still has a slight temperature and his blood counts are low. He had a platelets transfusion and had a bad reaction to it which made him itchy and uncomfortable, He’s been given piriton which seems to have worked and is now sleeping peacefully. I got an E-mail today from the organiser of the run and there are only 100 places left. So if you wish to run and have not entered yet please do so now. Could you please tell me if you have entered and are raising money. All the people I know about are also listed on this page. If you are planning on sponsoring and haven’t done so already please send me a pledge by e-mail, I’ll chase up payment out later! Again all the sponsors I know about are listed in the yellow box on the right. If you are not running please consider coming along on the 4th March and cheering us all on. It should be great fun day out. Monday 12th February Christian came home on Thursday and has had a good weekend at home. He’s back for chemo at the Royal Marsden, this Thursday, Friday and Saturday. It is the one that needs him to stay in overnight for so Claudia will be in Thursday night and I’ll do Friday night. The run is going fantastically well. I have ordered 150 T-shirts with a nice design on the back and have assumed everybody who is running will want one. I’d like to thank Jonathan Cook for his help in designing the T-shirt. Jon has also volunteered to come and take photographs on the day. So make sure you’re looking good as you cross the finish line… Wednesday 28th February Christian’s Hickman line is red and sore, it is probably infected so we have brought him to St George’s. He is in good nature but is neutrapenic and his Hemoglobin levels are low so they have put him on antibiotics and he is going to have a blood transfusion. If he remains happy and doesn’t spike a temperature we hope to take him home tomorrow. St George’s have set up a credit card payment site for the Christian Blandford fund. If you wish to sponsor or have already pledged this is an efficient way to pay, they only charge 3% as opposed to the 10% justgiving charge. If you forward me your confirmation e-mail from the donation I’ll be able to keep tally of what we have raised and I’ll add your name to list of generous donors. Thanks again to all those who have sponsored so far, we are over the moon with how it’s going. Finally I’ll leave you with the question, “Is the world ready for another super-hero?” Thursday 1st March Christian had been given his antibiotics and a blood transfusion and he was all ready to go home. The community nurses would finish the course of antibiotics by visiting us once a day at home. Claudia then noticed that the scar on his leg were the autopsy was done was red and inflamed. We showed the doctors who said that, as long as his temperature didn’t spike he would be allowed home as the antibiotics would sort it out. Right on cue, Christian started to look a bit flushed, they took his temperature and it was 38.5. He will now probably have to stay for 48 hours as they blitz him with “first line” antibiotics, the one he was on before and two others. He is, however, in fine spirits. It’s 8.45pm, he has finally stopped chatting and is peacefully asleep. Monday 5th March 2007 Fortunately, we came home Saturday evening and got a good night’s sleep ahead of Sunday’s run. It was a fantastic event, the photographer Jonathan Cook has taken loads of photos, it will take a bit of time to process them all, there a few here.   If you are one of the people who have generously pledged then you can pay either by cheque to me or online here. If you meant to pledge something but didn’t get around to it, it is not too late. Either way please forward the payment confirmation to me at peter@christianblandford.com. Monday 7th March I have some photos of the run. They are here or here if you can’t see flash files. I have set up a new donation page with a list of donors and total amount donated it is here. Wednesday 14th March Christian had his chemo last week which means there is only one dose left of this stage. After that, at the end of April, he will have the intensive chemo. We will be admitted to the Royal Marsden for it and Christian is likely to be very ill for at least two or three weeks after. It is at this stage that he will be given the stem cells that were harvested a couple of months ago. He’s in quite good spirits generally at the moment but his hemoglobin levels are low which makes him feel a bit poorly and means he will probably need a transfusion by the end of the week. The sponsorship money is coming in well, thank you very much again to all those who donated. There is a full list of donors and a link to the payment page here. Please contact me if you should be on this list and are not. By the way there is a photo of Christian in page 96 of April’s Digital Camera Magazine! Monday 19th March We took Christian in for an MRI scan today at the Royal Marsden. It was done under a general anesthetic as he needed to stay still for over an hour as it was done. He always finds general anesthetic a bit upsetting but has recovered well and is now in a good mood. We will get the results of the scan on Friday when we go back to see Kathy Pritchard Jones. It is an important result as we will find out if there has been any spreading of cancer since the treatment began. He has had some aches and pains recently which are, apparently, common when on chemotherapy but each one is clearly a worry.   Friday 23rd March We are in The Royal Marsden at the moment. Christian has had a ultra sound on his tummy and pelvis which was all clear. We have also had the results of the MRI on both legs which shows no spreading on the left leg and the right leg is clear. This is good news as he been complaining of a sore tummy and pain in both legs so we had been very worried that he hadn’t responded to the chemo. Saturday 31st March We are at the Royal Marsden again. Christian came in for the last dose of this round of chemo. It was the one that is given over three days with fluids so his kidney is protected. We were due home yesterday evening but unfortunately his temperature spiked and Claudia had to stay here with him overnight. He is now on antibiotics and we are waiting for his temperature to stabilise before we can bring him home. We are hoping that’ll be tomorrow. The plan is still to start the intensive chemo in the beginning of May and we will probably be here at the Marsden for the whole of May as he recovers. It’s possible we may come in a week early for an intensive dose of the same chemotherapy that he’s been on so far. I have been given a long list of all the people who sponsored online, I am busily trying to reconcile that with the people who pledged sponsorship. If you did pledge and haven’t sponsored yet I would appreciate it if you could pay online here and send me a copy of the payment e-mail receipt. If you would rather pay by cheque please e-mail me for details. Easter Saturday We got home from The Royal Marsden Last Sunday evening. Christian has had a cold all week so it was inevitable that when his neutrophils came down to zero we would be back in the Hospital. He spiked a temperature this afternoon and Claudia brought him to St George’s. As usual he is on first line antibiotics until they can rule out a bacterial infection. He is currently having a blood transfusion as he HB levels are also very low. A few people have asked about how Henry is coping with all of this. So far, I reckon he’s done better than any of us. We got his school report last week and amongst lots of good comments it said he’s popular with his friends and his teachers and is a pleasure to teach. He also got an A++ for arithmetic and an A+ for drama where is he is a natural unless he is asked to mime… Easter Monday (and my sister Sam’s Birthday) Christian has been pretty unwell all weekend. His temperature has got up to 40.3 C, this has made him very uncomfortable and he has had vomiting and diarrhea. They are not sure if it is due to a Bacterial infection or a Virus but his CPR count has risen to 250 which, apparently, is a sign of bacterial infection. They have added a third intravenous antibiotic to help combat it. Claudia seems to be suffering from the same bug as Christian has and to top it all off Henry did a Superman off a climbing frame and had to go for an X-Ray at A\u0026E to make sure it wasn’t fractured. Christian seems to be getting better, his temperature is not quite so high and he’s a bit happier. Wendy (Nanna) is staying with him at St George’s tonight to give me a break and Bob and Marc (Claudia’s dad and brother) are looking after him tomorrow while I go to work. Christian is also getting GCSF which boosts his neutrophils so hopefully he will soon be better equipped to fight the infection. Thursday 12th April Christian is now home and feeling much better (as is Claudia). The intensive chemo is due to start on the 25th April (correction from incorrect date). Saturday 21st April (Aunty Danny’s Birthday) We met with Kathy Pritchard Jones, Christian’s consultant yesterday. We have had various tests done this week ahead of the intensive chemo next week. All the results were as we hoped, with no spreading of the cancer to any other bones in the body. We are being admitted to the Marsden on Wednesday 25th, Christian will have a daily dose of the same two drugs that he has already taken as well as a one off intensive dose of a different one. He will need an NG tube in his nose as he will be very nauseous and will probably not want to eat or take any of the medicines that he will need, that will probably be put in on Wednesday. We also discussed the next stage of his treatment that will be radiotherapy, he’ll need a daily dose to his leg for two weeks. As he is unlikely to stay still it means that he’ll need a general anesthetic each time. The effected area is not close to the growth plate of the bone but there is still a danger that it may slow down the growth in that leg. The boys recorded a message for Favourite Auntie Danny Saturday 28th April 2007 Christian is in pretty good spirits. He has been on pretty much around the clock chemotherapy as well and various other drugs to combat potential side effects. His NG tube went in Thursday afternoon and he pulled it out in his sleep on Thursday night so they had to put it back in yesterday morning. It was fine last night but he doesn’t like the sensation he gets when medicine gets pushed down it. He’s eating well and loves playing in the play room – here he was yesterday getting dirty… There are a few more recent pictures here . Thursday 3rd May 2007 Christian has finished all of the chemo now. He is not feeling too bad, a bit more sleepy than he has been but yesterday he ran around and played hide and seek with me taking advantage of an hour or so when he wasn’t attached to a drip. Today at around midday he will have the stem cells that were harvested a few weeks ago reintroduced. Apparently it can make him feel nauseous and can induce a seizure. He still loves playing up to a crowd. Here he is in the play room yesterday… Update – the stem cell transplant has been delayed until tomorrow, because they have decided to give him 72 hours from the end of chemo before he gets it. He needs to be well hydrated for it but as it has been delayed he has now been taken off the drip and has run off to play room with Anna. Watch out plates, here he comes… Friday 4th May 2007 Christian has had his stem cell transplant. It didn’t go too badly but wasn’t a lot of fun, it gives him a sore tummy and nausea as it is given. Bizarrely due to the chemicals used to preserve it, it gives him a strong smell of sweet corn first and he now smells of tinned tomato soup. He has started to go downhill and the worst of it will come in the next couple of weeks. The chemo will attack his stomach lining and he and will probably give have a very sore tummy, throat and mouth. This is called mucositis, there is not much that can be done about it apart from treating the symptoms and waiting for him to heal. He will probably end up on intravenous morphine for the pain and not be able to eat so will be on nutrition through his NG tube. Sunday 13th May 2007 As we expected it’s been a tough 10 days. Christian has been on Intravenous morphine for the pain and has had bad diarrhea and vomiting. He hasn’t eaten for about a week and has been on TPN which is intravenous nutrition. His Neutrophils and white blood count have been zero and as he has had a temperature he has been on antibiotic and antifunguls. The good news is that his Neutrophils have been boosted by a drug called GCSF and he can now fight infection and the mucositis should start to heal. I’m looking forward to him laughing again, at the moment his only response to my usual nonsense is “stop it daddy, you’re annoying me”. And who can blame him? Saturday 19th May 2007 Christian has started to recover. His temperature has been under control and he is smiling again! He is not eating yet but is completely off the morphine and we hope to be home within a week or so. The radiotherapy has been booked in, it starts in the middle of June and it is given Monday to Friday for 3 weeks. He will need to be given a general anesthetic each time. They hope that the radiation will not effect the growth of the leg too much but there may be a very slight one. Thursday 24th May – Update from Claudia After 4 weeks and 1 day it looks like we are on our way out of here. We will be going home this afternoon! Over the last few days Christian’s health has really improved. His cough is clearing up, his temperature has settled and his bloods seem to be doing everything on their own – without the aid of any transfusions or drugs. He is still very weak, but he is up and about a bit and no longer spends all day asleep in bed. In fact he is in the playroom right now with his nanny having a great time. I can’t tell you how wonderful it feels to know that he is at long last pain free and drug free! Once we get home we will have a couple of weeks to strengthen him up before he starts his radiotherapy on about 14th June. This will be daily, under a general anesthetic for three weeks. And then that’s it! Hopefully no more chemotherapy or radiotherapy ever again! I really would like to thank all of our family and friends who have been an absolute tower of strength over the last month. The food parcels that have been delivered to us either at home or the hospital really have helped tremendously and have been much appreciated. As have all the visits to us here at the hospital too. The Marsden isn’t the most convenient of places to get to so a big thank you for that too! It can get quite depressing here after a while, and knowing that company was on its way (with food and wine!!) gave us something to look forward to. Sunday 2rd June We have been home for 10 days now and Christian is improving day by day although he is still a bit weak. We are hoping to be able to have his Hickman Line removed after radiotherapy and before we go to Spain mid July so he will be able to swim in the pool! Thursday 14th June Christian has had his first radiotherapy today. He was not particularly impressed with the room full of Doctors and equipment and was a bit upset but, hopefully, he’ll get used to it over the next three weeks. Unfortunately he doesn’t like the effect of the general anesthetic and so cries when he sees the white syringe. He did, however, recover very quickly and a couple of minutes after he awoke he was tucking into a jam doughnut. He has had a tummy ache at night for the last couple of weeks which has been waking him (and us!) up. At first we assumed it was still pain from the chemotherapy but he had some tests yesterday and he has a urinary infection. He’s on oral antibiotics so that should clear it up pretty quickly but we are still waiting to hear back from the lab to confirm which bacteria is growing on his urine sample. Once identified they will either stick with the oral antibiotic he is on, or change it. There was talk too of sending him for an abdominal ultrasound tomorrow. I am trying to collect the last of the sponsorship money. If you were kind enough to pledge and haven’t got around to paying please pay onlinehere. Similarly, if you ran the race and are still owed money from sponsors please send them the link and encourage them to pay online. Thank you all again for the amazing support, I have been assured by Sean Bonnington that the money raised will be vital to getting the “kids on 5” project off the ground. Thursday 5th July 2007 Christian had the last session of radiotherapy yesterday and had his Hickman line removed this morning. he has coped remarkably well and even managed to get to his nursery sports day earlier this week. We are now all looking forward to a couple of weeks in Spain at the end of July. In case you didn’t see it here is an amusing film we made last weekend… Monday 30th July 2007(From Claudia) We have just returned from a glorious two weeks at Villa Begur! After a rocky start with Christian not sleeping due to a bad cough I was pleased that we had taken some precautionary antibiotics with us and once they kicked in he was much better. Then we ended up in the local hospitals A\u0026E – nothing serious but a bit of a bummer nonetheless and very unfair on Christian. However, after that all was perfect and we spent the rest of the holiday soaking up the sun (and wine!) and enjoying ourselves with the various different friends and family who came to join us. Even leaving wasn’t too bad since we will be heading back to the villa in another 4 weeks for the last week of the school hols. Pete has posted some photos from the holiday so you can see how the boys are growing – and how much hair Christian has now (and how little hair Pete has now!). Both Peter and I wanted to thank some of you who really have done an amazing effort in the fundraising: All of those who ran the 10km and raised money. There were some amazing achievements, Jo Winnick, for example, raised a staggering £5000 and ran the 10k in a very impressive time! Monika Kurec who is an incredibly fit friend of mine. She did some mad long (incredibly long!) bike ride in Cape Town South Africa and raised a HUGE amount of money for Christian’s fund. Here is aan email that she sent upon completing it: Well I made it! 4 hrs 4 mins (30 mins faster than expected!) It was, by far, the most amazing experience of my life and I’m still on a high from it! The 2 days before temperatures soared up to an incredible Autumnal 39 degrees C!! This just added to our list of things to worry about! eg.. What if my wheels fall off? Will I make it up those hills? When do I eat? I don’t want to die on those downhills! What if I need a wee? Will a baboon jump in front of me? (pretty likely) etc… Endless worries. As it turned out, beautiful clouds rolled in on the race day morning and temps dropped to a “cool” 26 degrees. We couldn’t have been any luckier. 36,000 people took part and I managed to complete the whole race without a puncture, without falling off, without sunburn but with the biggest smile and Adrenalin high I’ve experienced. I can’t recommend this event enough to everyone! I can’t thank you all enough for all the support and sponsorship. I have raised £4393.59 so far, which is just amazing. Thanks Monika! I don’t know when you found the time to train for this, and I know that the entire trip must have been very expensive for you. You really are one of the most selfless people I know. Fi Lovett owner of Fifi Wilsons on Abbeville Road – Fi held two clothing sales with proceeds going towards Christians fund and she raised an incredible £1000. I am so grateful to all the hard work both she, and her manager Dawn, put in to the event. I know how busy they both are running two successful shops and am truly flattered that they wanted to help with Christian’s fund. 28th September 2007 Last week Christian had a bone scan and a CT scan and the results came back today, he is clear of cancer! We’ve got a long way to go and he is still in danger from the treatment, his kidney function, for example, is still not what it should be, but we are obviously very relieved. There was a strange moment in the school car park when he started back at school. A whisper went around the crowds of parents and teachers when they saw Christian, and as he stood there looking confused, a round of applause went up from everybody around him. 4th January 2008 Claudia took Christian into the Marsden for his 3 monthly check up today. He had a chest x-ray, a leg x-ray, and an abdominal ultrasound. The chest and tummy are fine and we should get the result of the leg x-ray in a couple of days. The leg x-ray was done at the last moment, more as a marker than because there is any sign of a problem Christian has been on good form recently, he is enjoying school and had a great Christmas. I have recently heard from Sean Bonnington from St George’s with some good news, the details are here and here. We are obviously over the moon that the funds raised have been so effective and are very grateful for all of you who so kindly donated, ran, or in many cases, did both. If anybody is considering a sponsored event I would appreciate it if you would consider the Christian Blandford fund at St George’s as a beneficiary, please contact me for details. By the way Christian goes to the Royal Marsden in Sutton, not the one in Chelsea which was so sadly damaged by fire this week. Happy New Year! 21st March 2008 Last week Christian had some tests at the Royal Marsden – a blood test, a bone scan and a chest x-ray. The good news is that all is still clear. We had been a bit worried as he had a really nasty bug earlier this month with a very high temperature, and an upset stomach, so it was a real relief when the results came back. Both Henry and Christian had their last day at Eaton House the Manor this week and are looking forward to starting at The New Beacon in Sevenoaks after Easter. 9th January 2009 – Good News Christian has been complaining about leg pains for the last few weeks, mostly at the bottom of his right leg. This has obviously been worrying us as these were the symptoms when his cancer last relapsed to the bone. We told the Marsden about it at his review before Christmas and he was booked in for a bone scan today. Christian was incredibly brave, he had to have a cannular in a vein in his arm to give him a shot of radioactive material for the scan and blood tests. There were no tears or complaints and he laid perfectly still for nearly an hour for the bone scan. I think he enjoyed his recent celebrity status as all of the doctors and nurses commented on recognising him from the recent fund raising brochure for The Royal Marsden! Kathy Pritchard Jones, his doctor, was kind enough to stay late after work to check the scan and said that she was pretty confident it was all clear but would need final confirmation from a radiologist. She has just called us (8.00pm Friday) to tell us that she has got hold of a radiologist who agrees that everything is clear. He, obviously, still needs to go back for regular checks but for the moment life is good. HAPPY NEW YEAR! 17th March 2009 Christian and Claudia went to the launch of a new campaign at the Royal Marsden in Sutton yesterday. They asked to use one of our photos for the campaign, guess who they chose to take the mickey out of? Claudia was very excited to meet Dermot O’Leary and once Christian recognised him as the bloke who introduced Michael Jackson recently at the O2 even he was impressed. As they were saying goodbye, Christian tapped Dermot on the leg and whispered “What’s Michael Jackson like?”. Claudia was interviewed by the BBC and apparently has been on the news a lot today but we have missed it! Photos to follow but here is a link to the BBC website. Here is a link to Claudia’s interview. 13th feb 2010 Christian had his regular (4 monthly) check up at the Royal Marsden last week. He has had a persistent cough since Christmas which was enough to worry us. Happily everything is fine and the chest X-Ray came up clear. He took a DVD we made of him dancing to Michael Jackson and charmed all the doctors and nurses with it. The sad news is that Kathy Pritchard Jones who last looked after Christian from the beginning is moving to Great Ormind Street were I am sure she will continue to do great work. We have made an appointment with her in March to check Christian’s kidney function which was low last year, she will be leaving The Royal Marsden soon after. We have promised to give her a copy of Christian’s DVD as he wouldn’t part with the one he took. June 2010 Christian’s latest check up went well again, he will now be having 6 monthly check ups. Christian has always loved dancing, even when he was unwell and tiny he was a funky mover… Here he is a few years later and much healthier The story carries on in the blog on the home page or here for all the posts about Christian,in chronological order.","d":"","t":"Christian’s Story","u":"/christians-story/"},{"c":"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. Usually treatment is given under a ‘joint care’ program where specialist hospitals provide the main treatment and local hospitals provide emergency care. For example, Christian received all his radiotherapy and chemo at the Royal Marsden, but when he spiked a temperature while neutrapenic (no immune system), we would drive him to St George’s Hospital in Tooting for emergency treatment. Christian also had his kidney tumour removed at St George’s and recovered in their excellent Paediatric Intensive Care Unit. Despite the high levels of care, the standards of comfort and equipment at St George’s were far inferior to those at the Royal Marsden. This is because the high profile, specialist hospitals tend to attract more funds from government and charity. The curtains in the Pinkney ward where Christian was treated were so thin all the kids would wake up at the crack of dawn in the summer and the parents slept on old, lumpy sofa beds. This is why we decided to concentrate our fundraising efforts on the NHS hospitals. This is how the lovely people at Post Pals described us “they realised a lot of people support the main children’s or cancer hospitals yet the local hospitals which children spend a lot of time in with infections or for transfusions rarely get support. They decided instead of fundraising for huge items they instead would do the little things others don’t think of, like buying decent curtains for the children’s ward so the kids no longer wake up at sunrise in the summer – a truly wonderful charity working away quietly at improving families quality of life.” Recently we have gone into partnership with Tesla Owners Group UK to provide mini Teslas for children’s wards throughout the UK. The main beneficiary of the fund has been St George’s hospital, so far we have provided: • Accuvein scanners that make inserting cannulas much less traumatic and painful • Wall mounted flat screen TVs and DVD players in the Pinkney Ward • Laptops for patients and parents to use • A new parents’ lounge in the Pinkney Ward. • Black-out blinds in all the rooms in the Pinkney Ward. Raising money for these is why originally started the charity. • A new nurses’ workstation making their life much easier. • A number of hand held computer games, games consoles and games for use by Pinckney patients • New sofa beds for parental use • Magnetic white boards and laminated posters will be provided to allow children to customise their rooms with their own familiar decor • A portable ultrasound machine to allow patients to be scanned on the ward, making canulars much less painful to insert. An expensive but, we felt, worthy investment. • Magazines for the dayroom which are delivered monthly to ensure a constant supply of fresh reading matter for quiet times • An Information Pack which offers new parents and patients on the wards easy access to all they need to know • A visit from Father Christmas,who brought presents for all the children. • A significant contribution towards the new children’s garden which will provide a much needed sanctuary for patients, their siblings and their parents. Please consider the Christian Blandford Fund if you are fund raising for a sponsored event or looking to make a charitable donation THINGS WE HAVE DONE FUND RAISING EVENTS","d":"","t":"What We Do","u":"/whatwedo-2/"},{"c":"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!","d":"2014-09-25","t":"Piano Playing at Grandfather’s Wedding","u":"/2014/09/25/piano-playing-at-grand-fathers-wedding/"},{"c":"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.","d":"2014-09-23","t":"A great donation for a fabulous cause","u":"/2014/09/23/a-great-donation-for-a-fabulous-cause/"},{"c":"Christian’s latest hobby is game writing, you can try his latest games here. games.christianblandford.com","d":"2014-04-18","t":"Christian’s new Hobby – Writing 3D Games","u":"/2014/04/18/christians-new-hobby-writing-3d-games/"},{"c":"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.","d":"2013-12-27","t":"Christmas gifts for the children at St George’s","u":"/2013/12/27/christmas/"},{"c":"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","d":"2013-12-22","t":"A Pianist and an Elf","u":"/2013/12/22/a-pianist-and-an-elf/"},{"c":"Sam is Christian’s Aunty and is running a half Marathon at Bournemouth marathon festival for the Christian Blandford Fund. 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","d":"2013-10-06","t":"Sam Tanner – Bournemouth half marathon","u":"/2013/10/06/sam-tanner-bournemouth-half-marathon/"},{"c":"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.","d":"2012-12-28","t":"Merry Christmas!","u":"/2012/12/28/merry-christmas/"},{"c":"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. We would appreciate you sharing this page on Facebook and Twitter using the links below","d":"2012-10-28","t":"An Amazing story of a bottle of 1990 Bollinger","u":"/2012/10/28/an-amazing-story-of-a-bottle-of-1990-bollinger/"},{"c":"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!","d":"2012-10-20","t":"Val’s Jump","u":"/2012/10/20/vals-jump/"},{"c":"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. 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.","d":"2012-06-30","t":"Darren’s Iron Man","u":"/2012/06/30/darrens-iron-man/"},{"c":"The Christian Blandford Fund made a significant contribution toward this amazing new garden at St George’s. It is a wonderful private space for children to get away from the wards. Mark Owen was very kind to come and open it. He was fantastic, signing loads of autographs, posing for photos, visiting the wards, and presenting the hospital with a £20,000 from The Take That Foundation. The photos are here.","d":"2012-04-27","t":"Christian Meets Mark Owen and Opens a Garden","u":"/2012/04/27/christian-meet-mark-owen-and-opens-a-garden/"},{"c":"There is a lovely write up from the wonderful people at post pals who loved Christian’s dancing video. Here is what they write… When Christian joined Post Pals he was a very poorly little boy fighting cancer for the second time, after finishing gruelling treatment for kidney cancer and enjoying a brief remission, the cancer returned. Christian was given a poor chance of making it even with all the treatment- weeks of radiation, months of gruelling chemotherapy and even a stem cell transplant. One of my all time favourite Post Pal pictures is of him with a little super hero kit a volunteer had sent, amazing how a bit of fabric, a paper mask and a sticker can transport a child into their imagination. The reason I’m posting about Christian is we are sadly all too often sharing devastating news, but not today. Instead here is a video made by superhero Christian himself, dancing to Michael Jackson and duetting with himself! Once you’ve watched the video check out the amazing charity the family set up, they realised a lot of people support the main children’s or cancer hospitals yet the local hospitals which children spend a lot of time in with infections or for transfusions rarely get support. They decided instead of fundraising for huge items they instead would do the little things others don’t think of, like buying decent curtains for the children’s ward so the kids no longer wake up at sunrise in the summer – a truly wonderful charity working away quietly at improving families quality of life. You can see their website here.","d":"2012-02-14","t":"Lovely post  from Post Pals","u":"/2012/02/14/lovely-post-from-post-pals/"},{"c":"It’s been a while since we’ve had a video of Christian’s dancing, this is something he put together all on his own, even the editing…","d":"2012-02-12","t":"Christian’s Double Dancing","u":"/2012/02/12/christians-double-dancing/"},{"c":"16th December 2011 Christian had his 6 monthly checkup today. All good with nothing to worry about. Apparently now that he has been clear for four and a half years, the chance of a relapse is “tiny”. 14th December 2011 We have ordered all the toys for Santa to deliver to the children’s wards at St George’s on the 23rd December. Ho ho ho! 12th December 2011 We have bought 20 cot mobiles for the Hedgehog Ward at Tunbridge Wells Hospital which Claudia is delivering next week. 10th December 2011 Christian and his class put on a lovely nativity play this year. The photos are here. If any parent wants a higher res copy of the photos please contact Peter. 3rd December 2011 Thank you to the lovely Leila Hacket at the wonderful Coco Cuscino for their continued support. They have just had an event to launch their amazing Christmas collection and gave a share of the proceeds to the Christian Blandford Fund. 1st December 2011 The Pinckney ward at St George’s now has a new Christmas tree and decorations thanks to The Christian Blandford Fund. Thank you to Darren Bowler and Marianne Sylvester for sorting it out.","d":"2011-12-16","t":"December 2011","u":"/2011/12/16/december-2011/"},{"c":"Just before Christmas, Christian, Peter and Henry went to St George’s again to be Santa and elves and hand out presents to children unfortunate enough to be in hospital during the festive period. The Bowler family and the Hancox family did a great job of wrapping all the present and delivering them so they were ready for Santa to hand them out. This year we bought more than ever so plenty were left over for arrivals on or just after Christmas. Neil Berrecloth popped in to help and the play specialists, very efficient in sorting out the right presents for each child. There are more photos on Facebook The next day, I got this lovely e-mail I just wanted to say “thank-you” on behalf of my son Alex, who received a lovely teddy. It really cheered him up, as did the visit from father Xmas and his little helper: his eyes lit up when he saw them (I think he was thinking “oh no, the door’s opening, someone in a uniform is coming to do something nasty to me”) and was lovely for his dad and mum to see. As you can appreciate, being in an isolation room at Xmas is pretty grim for a kid. Alex has been poorly all his life and is a “regular” at St George’s, despite living 60 miles away in West Sussex. The distance makes it particularly difficult as his brother William, who he is very close to, has to stay at his Grandma’s during his many stays at St George’s, so we are all split up as a family. Luckily, we were put on “home leave” for Xmas but must return next Friday. I think your charity is brilliant. As soon as I read the poster in the posh new parents room I could tell that the person who wrote it had a real insight into life for kids and their families in this situation that only personal experience (unfortunately) can bring. Merry Xmas to you all and keep up the good work!","d":"2011-12-06","t":"Christmas visit to St George’s","u":"/2011/12/06/christmas-visit-to-st-georges/"},{"c":"23rd November 2011 Thank you to Sam Palmer and the Sevenoaks ladies joggers for donating £180 to the Christian Blandford Fund after they all ran the Brighton 10k and had a celebratory curry with Claudia. With gift aid, their donation is worth over £250. 20th November 2011 Congratulations to Claudia for raising over £2000 for the Christian Blandford fund and running the Brighton 10k in 1hr and 1 minute!","d":"2011-11-23","t":"November 2011","u":"/2011/11/23/november-2011/"},{"c":"2nd July 2011 Hi all – we have 2 more Take That tickets to sell to raise money for our bike ride.1st July 2011 – More take that tickets!!!!! – this is from Fiona, one of the Blondes on bikes TEXT ONLY your bid to Caroline Chalkley on 07788 598718 Opening/Reserve bid is £500 for both or £250 each Bidding Closing 5pm Sunday 3rd July 2 x VIP – TAKE THAT TICKETS WEMBLEY 6TH JULY ‘ROYAL ENCLOSURE’ BLOCK 252 ROW 1 All proceeds to go to www.theblandfords.com/christianblandford Fund Good luck x fi","d":"2011-07-02","t":"Take That Tickets!!!","u":"/2011/07/02/take-that-tickets/"},{"c":"Caroline Watt Rachael Morgan Fiona Spencer Caroline Chalkley 378 Kilometres, 3 days, 4 blondes! Blondes on Bikes – for one weekend only! 16th – 19th June 2011 Who would have thought any good could ever come from a mid-life crisis?? Turning 40 years can make people do the strangest of things – we have a bought a lot of lycra and decided to cycle from London to Paris – for one weekend only “Blondes on Bikes” go on tour! The “Blondes on Bikes” team is a small collection of 40ish year old mums with a total of 10 children between us. We all live Wandsworth, so our local hospital is St Georges. It is no surprise that St Georges provides a full range of General Paediatric Medicine inpatient and outpatient services. There are five children’s wards including eight Paediatric Intensive Care Unit beds for critically ill children. The BoB team feels lucky that it has not had to use any of these services, but being in the heart of “nappy valley” there are plenty of families that have and the wonderful resources available are stretched to their limit. Here is the fundraising page The Take That tickets raised an amazing £1300. Even better, Mark Owen and his lovely wife, Emma, donated a second set of tickets for the people who came second in the auction and offered £1350 for another set. This brings the total raised by the blondes on bikes to over an incredible £7000. Thank you so much!","d":"2011-06-26","t":"Blondes On Bikes","u":"/2011/06/26/blondes-on-bikes/"},{"c":"Four mum’s from Clapham are taking part in an amazing cycle ride to Paris. These are their words not mine… Who would have thought any good could ever come from a mid-life crisis?? Turning 40 years can make people do the strangest of things – we have bought a lot of lycra and decided to cycle from London to Paris – for one weekend only “Blondes on Bikes” go on tour! The “Blondes on Bikes” team is a small collection of 40ish year old mums with a total of 10 children between us. We all live Wandsworth, so our local hospital is St Georges. It is no surprise that St Georges provides a full range of General Paediatric Medicine inpatient and outpatient services. There are five children’s wards including eight Paediatric Intensive Care Unit beds for critically ill children. The BoB team feels lucky that it has not had to use any of these services, but being in the heart of “nappy valley” there are plenty of families that have and the wonderful resources available are stretched to their limit.","d":"2011-06-08","t":"Blondes On Bikes","u":"/2011/06/08/blondes-on-bikes-2/"},{"c":"We are in the process of ordering 8 shiny new laptops for the Pinkney ward at St George’s. They will be available for use by children and their parents. This will allow the kids to play games online, watch DVDs, use social networking sites and do homework. They will also be equipped with Microsoft Office so parents can catch up on work while they are on the ward. We would like to thank the lovely people at Seareach UK, for offering to provide security labels for free. We contacted them for a quote and they offered us 100 labels free of charge. Thank you very much guys!","d":"2011-05-16","t":"New Laptops for St George’s hospital","u":"/2011/05/16/new-laptops-for-st-georges-hospital/"},{"c":"Christian was in Mauritius last week and took part in a fashion show to launch Jean Paul Gaultier’s latest collection! Lots of other children who stayed at The Residence also took part. I have put the photos here and also on photobox here where you can order prints (password christianblandfordfund). Please share this site on facebook and other social networking sites. Donations from parents welcome! 😉","d":"2011-04-14","t":"Jean Paul Gaultier Fashion Show","u":"/2011/04/14/jean-paul-gaultier-fashion-show/"},{"c":"21st February 2011 Christian has been very keen to have some input into the site and has written the following… Thank you for coming to my website. The Christian blandford fund needs LOTS of money to make the children with cancer more happier. We need even more money for the St Georges hospital. If you like making children feel better then you definitely need to raise some money! Well there you go! 😉 February 2011 The New Logo!!! You have probably noticed that we now have a fantastic new logo. It was designed by Simon Brown of Shiny Brown Design. Simon gave up his time and expertise and refused payment for his services for which we are very grateful! The other exciting item of news for the fund is that we are now a registered charity with the registered charity number 1139614. You can see it’s listing on the Charity Commission website. January 2011 Christian’s Nanny, June Arthur, performed a demonstration of preparing Spanish tapas to the ladies of the NWR in Wimborne, the ladies generously donated £67 to the Christian Blandford Fund.","d":"2011-02-21","t":"February 2011","u":"/2011/02/21/february-2011/"},{"c":"Peter put on a Father Christmas outfit and went to St George’s to hand out presents with his two little helpers Henry and Christian. There are more photos here. Some parents wanted copies of the photos, they can be ordered directly from photobox. If you have not used them before send me an e-mail at peter@theblandfords.com and I’ll send you an offer code for 50 free prints. A big thank you to Hugh Miller, the very talented photographer who took the photos for us and donated his time and expertise. It was a lot of fun, made easy by the very organised play specialists at St George’s. Thank you also to Darren, Corrine, Emily and Amy for collecting wrapping and delivering the presents to the Hospital, they truly did all the hard work! The presents were all paid for from The Christian Blandford Fund and we are very grateful to the enormous support that we receive from the friends that support us. It was great to see Maz, one of the very skillful nurses at St George’s using the portable ultra sound machine that we supplied. At over £20,000 it is not in the NHS budget but makes inserting needles into children’s veins a much less traumatic and painful experience. Something we felt strongly was worth our investment! So we can continue this kind of work, please consider us if you are raising money for a charity event or are about to make a festive charity donation. Thank and Merry christmas and a Happy and Healthy New Year!","d":"2010-12-30","t":"Father Christmas Visit to St George’s","u":"/2010/12/30/father-christmas-visit-to-st-georges/"},{"c":"Darren Bowler and Amy Hancox are trustees of the Christian Blandford fund and joined me on a visit to St George’s to discuss future projects and look at some of the recent purchases and projects we have been involved with. Here are some of the pictures.","d":"2010-11-30","t":"Visit To St George’s","u":"/2010/11/30/visit-to-st-georges/"},{"c":"Christian loves going to Stagecoach in Hildenborough I have taken some photos of their shows and thought that some of the other parents might be interested in prints so have put them on photobox. If you have never used photobox contact me and I will get you an offer code for 50 free prints. There is no obligation, but if you order prints and wish to make a donation to the Christian Blandford fund, we would be very grateful Thank you! Peter and Claudia Blandford June 2011 – Bugsy Malone password – theblandfords July 2010 click here for photobox Album password theblandfords November 2010 demo click here for photos Password theblandford","d":"2010-11-27","t":"Stagecoach Photos","u":"/2010/11/27/stagecoach-photos/"},{"c":"25th November I’m sure you all agree that The Sevenoaks Chronicle is the hub of global news and events. 21st November First newspapers, now television! Anybody local keep an eye on the Sevenoaks Chronicle next week too. 17th November I’m sure you all read the Daily Express and have therefore already seen this, but for those that haven’t they ran a story on the Stagecoach awards and Christian’s prize. The newspaper had a lovely photo of Christian in it too. Here is the PDF of it.","d":"2010-11-25","t":"Newspapers and Television Fame!","u":"/2010/11/25/blog-posts-from-2010-2011/"},{"c":"Christian enjoys going to stagecoach where he practices dancing, singing and acting. When they found out about his illness, Wendy and Keith who run the Tonbridge school asked if they could put him forward for a national Stagecoach Award. If you are interested here is the letter that Keith wrote. Christian, Claudia, Peter and Christian’s nanny (Pete’s mum, June) went to the Houses of Parliament where Christian was named the winner of the Bravery prize. Needless to say we were over the moon! Click here for more photos of the event.","d":"2010-11-10","t":"Stagecoach Bravery Award","u":"/2010/11/10/stagecoach-bravery-award/"},{"c":"Christian’s mum, Claudia has decided to run 10km to raise money for the Christian Blandford Fund, she writes… Hi, thanks for visiting my page. For those of you who know me, I am not a runner. I may attempt to jog a little bit but I am rubbish – I don’t “do” speed, I constantly need to pee, and I always sprain my ankle. Not the right ingredients really to attempt a 10k! However, I am raising money for The Christian Blandford Fund. Christian is my son and he has been through cancer twice. As a family we have spent a huge amount of time in hospitals where we could see that they were crying out for basic things such as sofa beds for parents, curtains, high chairs, toys, electronic games etc. We managed to raise enough money to buy these things, and much more, but we need to continue to raise funds – sofa beds break, curtains rip, toys don’t last forever. Please help me to be able to continue to help the lives of sick children and their families in hospitals. Through Virgin Money Giving, you can sponsor me and donations will be quickly processed and passed to charities. Virgin Money Giving is a not for profit organisation and will claim gift aid on a charity’s behalf where the donor is eligible for this. I really appreciate all your support and thank you for any donations.","d":"2010-09-21","t":"Claudia’s 10km run","u":"/2010/09/21/claudias-10km-run/"},{"c":"Christian, Henry and I decided to have some fun promoting the Christian Blandford Fund","d":"2010-08-15","t":"Healthy and Delicious Pasta Sauce","u":"/2010/08/15/healthy-and-delicious-pasta-sauce/"},{"c":"The New Beacon School raised £437.61 by nominating the Christian Blandford Site as a recipient of the collection at the recent chapel service.","d":"2010-06-15","t":"The New Beacon","u":"/2010/06/15/the-new-beacon/"},{"c":"Peter Radford has entered the grueling Etape du Tour bike ride and will raise money for two charities, Chase Hospice Care and The Christian Blandford Fund. Pete is trying to raise £8,604 which is somehow relevant to the event. If you sponsor him you can guess what the link is and win a mystery prize! He writes, “It is 112 miles and 3 mountain climbs in the Pyrennes. Given that I weigh twice as much as a pro-rider and prefer a G\u0026T to protein shakes, this is a major challenge for me. Last year over 20% of the riders taking part did not finish – this must not be confused with a bike ride you can just turn up and get through on the day. We will be riding for around 10 hours on the day in 30 degrees heat. I am doing this ride with my mate Rob Lucas and we have been training since January, lost some weight and put a lot of miles on the bike. We are funding the ride ourselves with all the money from this site going straight to two charities.” Peter’s sponsorship page is here","d":"2010-06-03","t":"Pete Radford ( not Blandford!)","u":"/2010/06/03/pete-radford-not-blandford/"},{"c":"Christian’s latest check up went well again, he will now be having 6 monthly check ups. Christian has always loved dancing, even when he was unwell and tiny he was a funky mover… Here he is a few years later and much healthier","d":"2010-06-02","t":"Christian’s latest check up","u":"/2010/06/02/332/"},{"c":"Amy Hancox, a trustee with the Chritian Blandford Fund, persuaded the Head Master of Finton House School to nominate us as the beneficiary of their Summer fete. They raised a fantastic £2,600.","d":"2010-06-01","t":"Finton House Fete","u":"/2010/06/01/finton-house-fete/"},{"c":"Christian had his regular (4 monthly) check up at the Royal Marsden last week. He has had a persistent cough since Christmas which was enough to worry us. Happily everything is fine and the chest X-Ray came up clear. He took a DVD we made of him dancing to Michael Jackson and charmed all the doctors and nurses with it. The sad news is that Kathy Pritchard Jones who last looked after Christian from the beginning is moving to Great Ormind Street were I am sure she will continue to do great work. We have made an appointment with her in March to check Christian’s kidney function which was low last year, she will be leaving The Royal Marsden soon after. We have promised to give her a copy of Christian’s DVD as he wouldn’t part with the one he took.","d":"2010-02-13","t":"Check up at Royal Marsden \u0026#038; Michael Jackson","u":"/2010/02/13/check-up-at-royal-marsden-michael-jackson/"},{"c":"The Christian Blandford Fund has been given approved charitable status by the Inland Revenue. This will allow us to open our own bank account which will be done very shortly. The main beneficiary will ultimately remain as St George’s in Tooting but this will allow us to have even more control of how and when money is spent. For now the donate link is still crediting St George’s Charitable Foundation (the Christian Blandford fund) but soon the money will go straight to a separate charity account. The trustees of the charity are Peter Blandford, Claudia Blandford, Darren Bowler and Amy Hancox. Darren and Amy have also been busy helping spend some of the money that has been raised so far. Here is how St George’s put it… Many of you may know Darren Bowler as a great friend of the Blandfords. He has now generously offered his time to help project manage and speed up the spending of the monies from the Christian Blandford Fund. Helping Darren in many different ways is Amy Hancox, whose daughter Anna is a former Pinkney patient, and who, along with her husband Matt, ran the London Marathon in April 2009 to raise funds. St George’s Hospital Charity is delighted to announce that both Darren and Amy have become official St George’s Hospital Volunteers and we are thrilled to have their dedicated input and enthusiasm.","d":"2010-02-02","t":"Charitable Status and trustees","u":"/2010/02/02/charitable-status-and-trustees/"},{"c":"Peter’s step father, Sandy Arthur, sadly passed away in November. One of the charities supported by friends and family in lieu of flowers at the funeral was the Christian Blandford Fund. Several hundred pounds were donated.","d":"2009-11-15","t":"Thank you Sandy","u":"/2009/11/15/thank-you-sandy/"},{"c":"For Claudia and Peters 10th Wedding anniversary party guests were encouraged to donate to the Christian Blandford fund in lieu of presents. Several hundred pounds were donated.","d":"2009-09-15","t":"Wedding  Anniversary","u":"/2009/09/15/wedding-anniversary/"},{"c":"The New Beacon Sponsored Swim and Run – all the kids at Henry and Christian’s school got involved and raised an amazing £7,900","d":"2009-07-15","t":"The New Beacon","u":"/2009/07/15/the-new-beacon-2/"},{"c":"Christian and Claudia went to the launch of a new campaign at the Royal Marsden in Sutton yesterday. They asked to use one of our photos for the campaign, guess who they chose to take the mickey out of?   Claudia was very excited to meet Dermot O’Leary and once Christian recognised him as the bloke who introduced Michael Jackson recently at the O2 even he was impressed. As they were saying goodbye, Christian tapped Dermot on the leg and whispered “What’s Michael Jackson like?”. Claudia was interviewed by the BBC and apparently has been on the news a lot today but we have missed it! Photos to follow but here is a link to the BBC website. Here is a link to Claudia’s interview.","d":"2009-03-17","t":"Baldist PR!","u":"/2009/03/17/baldis/"},{"c":"March 09 – Graham Ford – Christian’s God dad is running the London Marathon for the Christian Blandford fund for the second year running. His just giving site is now up and running…","d":"2009-03-15","t":"Graham Ford","u":"/2009/03/15/graham-ford/"},{"c":"Christian has been complaining about leg pains for the last few weeks, mostly at the bottom of his right leg. This has obviously been worrying us as these were the symptoms when his cancer last relapsed to the bone. We told the Marsden about it at his review before Christmas and he was booked in for a bone scan today. Christian was incredibly brave, he had to have a cannular in a vein in his arm to give him a shot of radioactive material for the scan and blood tests. There were no tears or complaints and he laid perfectly still for nearly an hour for the bone scan. I think he enjoyed his recent celebrity status as all of the doctors and nurses commented on recognising him from the recent fund raising brochure for The Royal Marsden! Kathy Pritchard Jones, his doctor, was kind enough to stay late after work to check the scan and said that she was pretty confident it was all clear but would need final confirmation from a radiologist. She has just called us (8.00pm Friday) to tell us that she has got hold of a radiologist who agrees that everything is clear. He, obviously, still needs to go back for regular checks but for the moment life is good. HAPPY NEW YEAR!","d":"2009-01-09","t":"Good News","u":"/2009/01/09/good-news/"},{"c":"Kathy Winser Kathy is doing a couple of events this year. Firstly she is doing a Triathlon on Monday the 5th May for The Christian Blandford Fund, and then in June she will be doing the 52 mile bike ride from London to Brighton to raise money for “The British Heart Foundation”. Nice on Kath!","d":"2008-05-15","t":"Kathy Winser","u":"/2008/05/15/kathy-winser/"},{"c":"Team Christian is a group of elite endurance athletes who train under the supervision of child prodigy Christian Blandford. Christian is widely regarded as one of the World’s most innovative sports scientists and is able to combine an encyclopaedic knowledge of biomechanics with an intuitive understanding of human psychology. Team Christian are currently undergoing intensive final preparations for the 2008 Flora London marathon and, whilst the location of the T.C training camp remains a tightly guarded secret, you can keep up with developments here. You can Support the team by donating directly to the Christian Blandford fund using the donate link to the left or, if you prefer, you can use just giving. Bob’s page is here. Team Christian are: Bob Ford Graham Ford Simon Desborough HERE ARE SOME NOTES TO FINISH IT OFF. The morning after: Good news from Team Christian… All three runners finished with Personal Bests: Bob: 3 hours 47 minutes. Graham: 3 hours 57 minutes. Des: 4 hours 11 minutes. Thanks to everyone who supported Team Christian in 2008.     T Minus 2 days and counting We’d be lying if we didn’t admit to a few superstitions in the final moments of training. Graham tends to spend his time cultivating ‘chafe’ body art. It’s apparent that Bob has taken a solemn vow to neither think of, or speak about, anything except the race and has taken to repeating a single mantra, such as “it’s a sharp pain right behind the balls” for long periods. Simon will normally choose between a bout of flu or serious back problems but this time round he’s been enjoying both experiences simultaneously.   We had a visit from Chris Moyles.   Good news on the R\u0026D side: Christian completed his much-anticipated research into accelerated colour schemes ® and confirmed that the fastest colour combination in the known universe is 93% Black and 7% Various.   Thanks for supporting Team Christian.   W/C 01.04.08: T minus 2 weeks, and counting. We are very sorry to confirm recent press speculation that Simon (Des) has failed a drug test. Unfortunately we still don’t have all the information but feel that it’s important to be clear about what we do know at this stage. In September 2007, on his return from Team Christian’s state-of-the-art heat acclimatisation centre in Ibiza, Des was subject to a routine urine screening. The results of the test are not conclusive but at the moment Des stands accused of taking a cocktail of substances designed to enhance the users’ enjoyment of the repetitive aspects of their training. Team Christian’s zero tolerance policy with regard to the use of performance enhancing drugs has been well reported and is unequivocal. We must stress that we have challenged the results of Des’ test and feel confident that the “B-Test” will clear his name. W/C 17.03.08: T minus 4 weeks, and counting. Good news – Bob has made a remarkable recovery from his illness. So much so that during yesterday’s intensive session at our facility in Rye he set an unofficial (wind assisted) World Record for the half marathon. News from the rest of the camp is less encouraging. Christian and Graham have carried out a series of intensive sports psychology sessions after Graham reported a recurrence of his sexuality issues. The problem seems to be consistent with the situation that caused Graham to miss the Athens Olympics in 2004 and as such we are very concerned. It seems that under race conditions Graham finds himself glancing at all the other boys in their tight running shorts. As far as we can understand this then leads to a series of involuntary impure thoughts, a strange tingling sensation in the groin and subsequently an inability to focus on the race plan. Christian has suggested a course of aversion therapy and Graham is currently training closely with Simon ‘in isolation’. W/C 10.03.08: T minus 5 weeks, and counting. It’s been a mixed week for Team Christian. Graham and Simon are going from strength to strength but we’re sorry to report that Bob’s training has suffered a serious set back… Bob returned from altitude training in the Alps complaining of ‘feeling a little poorly’ and ‘not being his usual self’. By Tuesday night the situation was looking pretty serious and Bob was raced to the hospital where he was diagnosed with a dangerous combination of two rare conditions; ‘the comm. O. N c-o-l-d’ and ‘Ijustneedsomeattentionandacuddle’. Thankfully we’ve had access to state-of-the-art medical facilities and some of the best brains in British science and have been able to stabalise Bob’s condition via a complex combination of treatments; primarily “phenoxymethyl p “ and “Dihydrogen monoxide” (Penicillin and Water). At the time of writing Team Christian is delighted to report that Bob is being a brave little soldier and may yet recuperate sufficiently to receive his knighthood from the Queen this Thursday.","d":"2008-04-15","t":"Team Christian","u":"/2008/04/15/team-christian/"},{"c":"One man, one mission Rob Hall is planning to come first in this year’s London Marathon. Yes, you heard me right, he has an elite runner’s place and his aim is to lead the pack for as long as he possibly can! Rob thinks he will be able to lead for 5 or 6 minutes until he collapses in a heap, berated by the commentators. He is taking sponsorship for how many minutes he can lead the 2008 London Marathon, with all proceeds going to The Christian Blandford fund. Please support Rob in this historic sporting challenge by e-mailing your pledge to robertwhall(at)supanet.com (please replace the (at) with @) or send peter an e-mail. We are hoping to get lots of PR for this event and wish Rob all the best in this, once in a lifetime, opportunity. You can sponsor Rob directly on his just giving page. To put it into context the 8 stone Kenyans start at 4 minute 45 pace for the first mile and complete the 26.2 miles in 4.55 pace. Burly 12 stone Rob commented “its not the winning its the leading that matters.” Find out more about the Christian Blandford Fund using the links to the left.","d":"2008-04-15","t":"Race Till You Drop","u":"/2008/04/15/race-till-you-drop/"},{"c":"Last week Christian had some tests at the Royal Marsden – a blood test, a bone scan and a chest x-ray. The good news is that all is still clear. We had been a bit worried as he had a really nasty bug earlier this month with a very high temperature, and an upset stomach, so it was a real relief when the results came back. Both Henry and Christian had their last day at Eaton House the Manor this week and are looking forward to starting at The New Beacon in Sevenoaks after Easter.","d":"2008-03-21","t":"More Tests","u":"/2008/03/21/more-tests/"},{"c":"Clapham Common 10km – Dee Gibson and Emma Darling running and raising sponsorship for the Christian Blandford Fund.","d":"2008-03-15","t":"Dee Gibson and Emma Darling","u":"/2008/03/15/dee-gibson-and-emma-darling/"},{"c":"March 08 – Chris Elsmore and his lovely girlfriend, Simone are having their 40th birthday’s this year and have very kindly suggested that friends donate to the Christian Blandford fund in lieu of giving presents.","d":"2008-03-15","t":"Chris and Simone","u":"/2008/03/15/589/"},{"c":"February 08 – George Kirkwood chose the Christian Blandford Fund as the recipient of a generous donation from the Kirwood family trust, for the second time.","d":"2008-02-15","t":"George Kirkwood","u":"/2008/02/15/george-kirkwood/"},{"c":"Matthew Hancox’s daughter, Anna has also been treated for a kidney tumur and has spent plenty of time at St George’s. Matthew and a team of 20 runners from ING are running the London Marathon this year. They are pooling all the money raised and ING are matching all donations. The money will be split between four charities, one of which is The Christian Blandford Fund. Matthew’s wife Amy is also running the London Marathon and raising money for the Christian Blandford Fund, her justgiving page is here.","d":"2008-02-15","t":"Amy and Matthew Hancox","u":"/2008/02/15/amy-and-matthew-hancox/"},{"c":"Claudia took Christian into the Marsden for his 3 monthly check up today. He had a chest x-ray, a leg x-ray, and an abdominal ultrasound. The chest and tummy are fine and we should get the result of the leg x-ray in a couple of days. The leg x-ray was done at the last moment, more as a marker than because there is any sign of a problem Christian has been on good form recently, he is enjoying school and had a great Christmas. I have recently heard from Sean Bonnington from St George’s with some good news, the details are here and here. We are obviously over the moon that the funds raised have been so effective and are very grateful for all of you who so kindly donated, ran, or in many cases, did both. If anybody is considering a sponsored event I would appreciate it if you would consider the Christian Blandford fund at St George’s as a beneficiary, please contact me for details. By the way Christian goes to the Royal Marsden in Sutton, not the one in Chelsea which was so sadly damaged by fire this week. Happy New Year! Peter Blandford’s photo","d":"2008-01-04","t":"Happy New Year","u":"/2008/01/04/happy-new-year/"},{"c":"28th September 2007 Last week Christian had a bone scan and a CT scan and the results came back today, he is clear of cancer! We’ve got a long way to go and he is still in danger from the treatment, his kidney function, for example, is still not what it should be, but we are obviously very relieved. There was a strange moment in the school car park when he started back at school. A whisper went around the crowds of parents and teachers when they saw Christian, and as he stood there looking confused, a round of applause went up from everybody around him.","d":"2007-09-28","t":"Great news and new day at school","u":"/2007/09/28/great-news-and-new-day-at-school/"},{"c":"July 07 – Fi Lovett owner of Fifi Wilson on Abbeville Road – Fi held two clothing sales with proceeds going towards Christians fund and she raised an incredible £1000. We are very grateful to all the hard work both she, and her manager Dawn, put in to the event. We know how busy they both are running two successful shops and am truly flattered that they wanted to help with Christian’s fund.","d":"2007-07-15","t":"Fi Lovett","u":"/2007/07/15/fi-lovett/"},{"c":"Thursday 5th July 2007 Christian had the last session of radiotherapy yesterday and had his Hickman line removed this morning. he has coped remarkably well and even managed to get to his nursery sports day earlier this week. We are now all looking forward to a couple of weeks in Spain at the end of July. In case you didn’t see it here is an amusing film we made last weekend…","d":"2007-07-05","t":"Last of the Radiotherapy","u":"/2007/07/05/last-of-the-radiotherapy/"},{"c":"Christian has had his first radiotherapy today. He was not particularly impressed with the room full of Doctors and equipment and was a bit upset but, hopefully, he’ll get used to it over the next three weeks. Unfortunately he doesn’t like the effect of the general anesthetic and so cries when he sees the white syringe. He did, however, recover very quickly and a couple of minutes after he awoke he was tucking into a jam doughnut. He has had a tummy ache at night for the last couple of weeks which has been waking him (and us!) up. At first we assumed it was still pain from the chemotherapy but he had some tests yesterday and he has a urinary infection. He’s on oral antibiotics so that should clear it up pretty quickly but we are still waiting to hear back from the lab to confirm which bacteria is growing on his urine sample. Once identified they will either stick with the oral antibiotic he is on, or change it. There was talk too of sending him for an abdominal ultrasound tomorrow. I am trying to collect the last of the sponsorship money. If you were kind enough to pledge and haven’t got around to paying please pay onlinehere. Similarly, if you ran the race and are still owed money from sponsors please send them the link and encourage them to pay online. Thank you all again for the amazing support, I have been assured by Sean Bonnington that the money raised will be vital to getting the “kids on 5″ project off the ground.","d":"2007-06-14","t":"First Radiotherapy","u":"/2007/06/14/first-radiotherapy/"},{"c":"We have been home for 10 days now and Christian is improving day by day although he is still a bit weak. We are hoping to be able to have his Hickman Line removed after radiotherapy and before we go to Spain mid July so he will be able to swim in the pool!","d":"2007-06-02","t":"Home!","u":"/2007/06/02/home/"},{"c":"Christian has started to recover. His temperature has been under control and he is smiling again! He is not eating yet but is completely off the morphine and we hope to be home within a week or so. The radiotherapy has been booked in, it starts in the middle of June and it is given Monday to Friday for 3 weeks. He will need to be given a general anesthetic each time. They hope that the radiation will not effect the growth of the leg too much but there may be a very slight one.","d":"2007-05-19","t":"Recovery…","u":"/2007/05/19/recovery/"},{"c":"As we expected it’s been a tough 10 days. Christian has been on Intravenous morphine for the pain and has had bad diarrhea and vomiting. He hasn’t eaten for about a week and has been on TPN which is intravenous nutrition. His Neutrophils and white blood count have been zero and as he has had a temperature he has been on antibiotic and antifunguls. The good news is that his Neutrophils have been boosted by a drug called GCSF and he can now fight infection and the mucositis should start to heal. I’m looking forward to him laughing again, at the moment his only response to my usual nonsense is “stop it daddy, you’re annoying me”. And who can blame him?","d":"2007-05-13","t":"Stop it daddy…","u":"/2007/05/13/365/"},{"c":"Christian has had his stem cell transplant. It didn’t go too badly but wasn’t a lot of fun, it gives him a sore tummy and nausea as it is given. Bizarrely due to the chemicals used to preserve it, it gives him a strong smell of sweet corn first and he now smells of tinned tomato soup. He has started to go downhill and the worst of it will come in the next couple of weeks. The chemo will attack his stomach lining and he and will probably give have a very sore tummy, throat and mouth. This is called mucositis, there is not much that can be done about it apart from treating the symptoms and waiting for him to heal. He will probably end up on intravenous morphine for the pain and not be able to eat so will be on nutrition through his NG tube.","d":"2007-05-04","t":"Stem Cell Transplant","u":"/2007/05/04/stem-cell-transplant/"},{"c":"Christian has finished all of the chemo now. He is not feeling too bad, a bit more sleepy than he has been but yesterday he ran around and played hide and seek with me taking advantage of an hour or so when he wasn’t attached to a drip. Today at around midday he will have the stem cells that were harvested a few weeks ago reintroduced. Apparently it can make him feel nauseous and can induce a seizure. He still loves playing up to a crowd. Here he is in the play room yesterday… Update – the stem cell transplant has been delayed until tomorrow, because they have decided to give him 72 hours from the end of chemo before he gets it. He needs to be well hydrated for it but as it has been delayed he has now been taken off the drip and has run off to play room with Anna. Watch out plates, here he comes…","d":"2007-05-03","t":"Chemo over","u":"/2007/05/03/chemo-over/"},{"c":"Saturday 28th April 2007 Christian is in pretty good spirits. He has been on pretty much around the clock chemotherapy as well and various other drugs to combat potential side effects. His NG tube went in Thursday afternoon and he pulled it out in his sleep on Thursday night so they had to put it back in yesterday morning. It was fine last night but he doesn’t like the sensation he gets when medicine gets pushed down it. He’s eating well and loves playing in the play room – here he was yesterday getting dirty…","d":"2007-04-28","t":"Artist","u":"/2007/04/28/artist/"},{"c":"We met with Kathy Pritchard Jones, Christian’s consultant yesterday. We have had various tests done this week ahead of the intensive chemo next week. All the results were as we hoped, with no spreading of the cancer to any other bones in the body. We are being admitted to the Marsden on Wednesday 25th, Christian will have a daily dose of the same two drugs that he has already taken as well as a one off intensive dose of a different one. He will need an NG tube in his nose as he will be very nauseous and will probably not want to eat or take any of the medicines that he will need, that will probably be put in on Wednesday. We also discussed the next stage of his treatment that will be radiotherapy, he’ll need a daily dose to his leg for two weeks. As he is unlikely to stay still it means that he’ll need a general anesthetic each time. The effected area is not close to the growth plate of the bone but there is still a danger that it may slow down the growth in that leg. The boys recorded a message for Favourite Auntie Danny","d":"2007-04-21","t":"Aunty Danny’s Birthday","u":"/2007/04/21/aunty-dannys-birthday/"},{"c":"Christian is now home and feeling much better (as is Claudia). The intensive chemo is due to start on the 25th April (correction from incorrect date).","d":"2007-04-12","t":"Home","u":"/2007/04/12/home-2/"},{"c":"Christian has been pretty unwell all weekend. His temperature has got up to 40.3 C, this has made him very uncomfortable and he has had vomiting and diarrhea. They are not sure if it is due to a Bacterial infection or a Virus but his CPR count has risen to 250 which, apparently, is a sign of bacterial infection. They have added a third intravenous antibiotic to help combat it. Claudia seems to be suffering from the same bug as Christian has and to top it all off Henry did a Superman off a climbing frame and had to go for an X-Ray at A\u0026E to make sure it wasn’t fractured. Christian seems to be getting better, his temperature is not quite so high and he’s a bit happier. Wendy (Nanna) is staying with him at St George’s tonight to give me a break and Bob and Marc (Claudia’s dad and brother) are looking after him tomorrow while I go to work. Christian is also getting GCSF which boosts his neutrophils so hopefully he will soon be better equipped to fight the infection.","d":"2007-04-09","t":"Easter Monday (and my sister Sam’s Birthday)","u":"/2007/04/09/easter-monday-and-my-sister-sams-birthday/"},{"c":"We got home from The Royal Marsden Last Sunday evening. Christian has had a cold all week so it was inevitable that when his neutrophils came down to zero we would be back in the Hospital. He spiked a temperature this afternoon and Claudia brought him to St George’s. As usual he is on first line antibiotics until they can rule out a bacterial infection. He is currently having a blood transfusion as he HB levels are also very low. A few people have asked about how Henry is coping with all of this. So far, I reckon he’s done better than any of us. We got his school report last week and amongst lots of good comments it said he’s popular with his friends and his teachers and is a pleasure to teach. He also got an A++ for arithmetic and an A+ for drama where is he is a natural unless he is asked to mime…","d":"2007-04-08","t":"Easter Saturday","u":"/2007/04/08/easter-saturday/"},{"c":"We are at the Royal Marsden again. Christian came in for the last dose of this round of chemo. It was the one that is given over three days with fluids so his kidney is protected. We were due home yesterday evening but unfortunately his temperature spiked and Claudia had to stay here with him overnight. He is now on antibiotics and we are waiting for his temperature to stabilise before we can bring him home. We are hoping that’ll be tomorrow. The plan is still to start the intensive chemo in the beginning of May and we will probably be here at the Marsden for the whole of May as he recovers. It’s possible we may come in a week early for an intensive dose of the same chemotherapy that he’s been on so far. I have been given a long list of all the people who sponsored online, I am busily trying to reconcile that with the people who pledged sponsorship. If you did pledge and haven’t sponsored yet I would appreciate it if you could pay online here and send me a copy of the payment e-mail receipt. If you would rather pay by cheque please e-mail me for details.","d":"2007-03-31","t":"Chemo","u":"/2007/03/31/chemo/"},{"c":"We are in The Royal Marsden at the moment. Christian has had a ultra sound on his tummy and pelvis which was all clear. We have also had the results of the MRI on both legs which shows no spreading on the left leg and the right leg is clear. This is good news as he been complaining of a sore tummy and pain in both legs so we had been very worried that he hadn’t responded to the chemo.","d":"2007-03-23","t":"At The Royal Marsden","u":"/2007/03/23/at-the-royal-marsden/"},{"c":"We took Christian in for an MRI scan today at the Royal Marsden. It was done under a general anesthetic as he needed to stay still for over an hour as it was done. He always finds general anesthetic a bit upsetting but has recovered well and is now in a good mood. We will get the results of the scan on Friday when we go back to see Kathy Pritchard Jones. It is an important result as we will find out if there has been any spreading of cancer since the treatment began. He has had some aches and pains recently which are, apparently, common when on chemotherapy but each one is clearly a worry.","d":"2007-03-19","t":"MRI","u":"/2007/03/19/mri/"},{"c":"Christian had his chemo last week which means there is only one dose left of this stage. After that, at the end of April, he will have the intensive chemo. We will be admitted to the Royal Marsden for it and Christian is likely to be very ill for at least two or three weeks after. It is at this stage that he will be given the stem cells that were harvested a couple of months ago. He’s in quite good spirits generally at the moment but his hemoglobin levels are low which makes him feel a bit poorly and means he will probably need a transfusion by the end of the week. The sponsorship money is coming in well, thank you very much again to all those who donated. There is a full list of donors and a link to the payment page here. Please contact me if you should be on this list and are not. By the way there is a photo of Christian in page 96 of April’s Digital Camera Magazine!","d":"2007-03-14","t":"Red","u":"/2007/03/14/390/"},{"c":"I have some photos of the run, they are here . I have set up a new donation page with a list of donors and total amount donated it is here.","d":"2007-03-07","t":"Photos","u":"/2007/03/07/photos/"},{"c":"Fortunately, we came home Saturday evening and got a good night’s sleep ahead of Sunday’s run. It was a fantastic event, the photographer Jonathan Cook has taken loads of photos, it will take a bit of time to process them all, there a few here. If you are one of the people who have generously pledged then you can pay either by cheque to me or online here. If you meant to pledge something but didn’t get around to it, it is not too late. Either way please forward the payment confirmation to me at peter@christianblandford.com.","d":"2007-03-05","t":"The 10km Run in Battersea Park","u":"/2007/03/05/the-10km-run-in-battersea-park/"},{"c":"Christian had been given his antibiotics and a blood transfusion and he was all ready to go home. The community nurses would finish the course of antibiotics by visiting us once a day at home. Claudia then noticed that the scar on his leg were the autopsy was done was red and inflamed. We showed the doctors who said that, as long as his temperature didn’t spike he would be allowed home as the antibiotics would sort it out. Right on cue, Christian started to look a bit flushed, they took his temperature and it was 38.5. He will now probably have to stay for 48 hours as they blitz him with “first line” antibiotics, the one he was on before and two others. He is, however, in fine spirits. It’s 8.45pm, he has finally stopped chatting and is peacefully asleep.","d":"2007-03-01","t":"At St George’s","u":"/2007/03/01/at-st-georges/"},{"c":"Christian’s Hickman line is red and sore, it is probably infected so we have brought him to St George’s. He is in good nature but is neutrapenic and his Hemoglobin levels are low so they have put him on antibiotics and he is going to have a blood transfusion. If he remains happy and doesn’t spike a temperature we hope to take him home tomorrow. St George’s have set up a credit card payment site for the Christian Blandford fund. If you wish to sponsor or have already pledged this is an efficient way to pay, they only charge 3% as opposed to the 10% justgiving charge. If you forward me your confirmation e-mail from the donation I’ll be able to keep tally of what we have raised and I’ll add your name to list of generous donors. Thanks again to all those who have sponsored so far, we are over the moon with how it’s going. Finally I’ll leave you with the question, “Is the world ready for another super-hero?”","d":"2007-02-28","t":"St George’s","u":"/2007/02/28/st-georges/"},{"c":"Christian came home on Thursday and has had a good weekend at home. He’s back for chemo at the Royal Marsden, this Thursday, Friday and Saturday. It is the one that needs him to stay in overnight for so Claudia will be in Thursday night and I’ll do Friday night. The run is going fantastically well. I have ordered 150 T-shirts with a nice design on the back and have assumed everybody who is running will want one. I’d like to thank Jonathan Cook for his help in designing the T-shirt. Jon has also volunteered to come and take photographs on the day. So make sure you’re looking good as you cross the finish line…","d":"2007-02-12","t":"Home","u":"/2007/02/12/home-3/"},{"c":"TWe were hoping to come home today but Christian isn’t well enough. He still has a slight temperature and his blood counts are low. He had a platelets transfusion and had a bad reaction to it which made him itchy and uncomfortable, He’s been given piriton which seems to have worked and is now sleeping peacefully. I got an E-mail today from the organiser of the run and there are only 100 places left. So if you wish to run and have not entered yet please do so now. Could you please tell me if you have entered and are raising money. All the people I know about are also listed on this page. If you are planning on sponsoring and haven’t done so already please send me a pledge by e-mail, I’ll chase up payment out later! Again all the sponsors I know about are listed in the yellow box on the right. If you are not running please consider coming along on the 4th March and cheering us all on. It should be great fun day out.","d":"2007-02-06","t":"Still at St George’s","u":"/2007/02/06/at-st-georges-2/"},{"c":"Christian has been on very good form for the last couple of weeks. On Wednesday he even went into nursery for the morning, they have made of photo montage for the wall of his day in! The last few days he has had a bit of a cold and his temperature spiked to 38.5 on Saturday afternoon. Because it was a week after chemo we had to assume he was neutrapenic and took him down to St George’s. One of the children at nursery came down with Chickenpox later in the week so Christian had to have an injection to protect him as, even though he has already had Chickenpox, the chemo will have killed his resistance to it. He has probably got a viral cold which is relatively harmless, but they have to follow protocol and treat it as an antibacterial infection. He is on intravenous antibiotics and they will keep him in for 48 hours while they try and grow cultures on a blood sample. If nothing is grown in that time and he doesn’t get another temperature and he seems well in himself, he will probably be allowed home. Dans is off to Montenegro to turn around the local property market. Our boys are really going to miss her. Here she is doing what she does best, making them laugh and spoiling them rotten…","d":"2007-02-05","t":"St George’s","u":"/2007/02/05/st-georges-2/"},{"c":"Claudia and Christian came home from the Royal Marsden today. Christian had a stem cell harvest done yesterday which went well, they got all they needed in one day, not two. He had a vascath fitted, which is a special line for the blood but that has already been removed. He is due for chemo and will be back at the Marsden tomorrow, Friday and Saturday as an outpatient. Once this is done we will be half way through this stage of the treatment.","d":"2007-01-24","t":"Stem Cell Harvest","u":"/2007/01/24/stem-cell-harvest/"},{"c":"Christian had a temperature on Tuesday so we have spent the last couple of days at St. George’s. It looks like it was an infection in his leg that caused the temperature. He has been on intravenous antibiotics which have done the trick and has been allowed home today. He will need to continue the course of antibiotics until next week but, as it’s a once a day dose, it can be given by the community nurses at home. The bone scan which was due tomorrow was brought forward to today and he and I were taken down to the Royal Marsden for it by ambulance. It was very exciting for both of us… We are seeing Kathy Pritchard Jones tomorrow to discuss his treatment and get the results of the bone scan. Kathy did pop into the radiology department this afternoon and at first glance, the scans looked good with no sign of the cancer spreading and a good reaction to the chemo so far. Good news at last…","d":"2007-01-18","t":"Scan Results","u":"/2007/01/18/scan-results/"},{"c":"Christian needs to have a stem cell harvest next week. It will involve him going into The Royal Marsden for a couple of days where he will get a new line fitted, unfortunately the Hickman Line will not work for this. They will take blood and draw stem cells which will then be frozen. Stem cells are special cells that can develop into either red cells, white cells or platelets and are normally produced by the bone marrow. When Christian has intensive chemotherapy in a few weeks he will not be able to produce any stem cells and they will use what they harvest next week. He should be in hospital for a couple of days. At the moment he is in pretty good form and seems to have reacted better to the last dose of chemotherapy than the first. His mouth is getting sore which could be a sign that he is developing mucositis, this is when the lining of the digestive system becomes inflamed, a common symptom of chemotherapy. His leg pains seem to have also got more frequent recently. We have an appointment with Kathy Pritchard Jones on Friday so we can discuss some of these issues with her. They are trying to fit him in for a bone scan and an x-ray for Friday too. The line up for the 10km run is looking good. Thanks very much to all those who have offered to sponsor so far and those who have are joining in. Even if you are not running please put a note in the diary and come along and cheer everybody along. All the team will have the same T-shirts so we should be easy to spot…","d":"2007-01-15","t":"Stem Cell Harvest","u":"/2007/01/15/stem-cell-harvest-2/"},{"c":"30th December 2006 Fortunately, Christmas was fairly peaceful. We had to visit the hospital every day in the morning to get some GCSF but that was much better than the 3 visits a day it looked at one point that we would be making. Christian’s hair started to fall out so we had to give him a haircut which he was a bit upset about. It didn’t seem to help when we told him that it looked like Daddy’s hair now. I can’t say I blame him. He still looks gorgeous though…","d":"2006-12-30","t":"Christmas 2006","u":"/2006/12/30/christmas-2006/"},{"c":"We have been in and out of St. George’s for the last few days getting antibiotics for Christian. He has also had GCSF to boost his neutrophils and a platelet transfusion as they were very low. The last couple of nights we have brought him home to sleep and yesterday he was home most of the day, returning to the hospital three times for his antibiotics. He had the last dose of that this morning and we are waiting to see what his blood results are to see whether he needs more GCSF. Nanny and Grandad (June and Sandy) were here yesterday and the boys got their presents. Henry and I have been playing scalextrix all morning and Christian is very excited about his pink dancing car! it could be worse Danny was threatening me with buying him a pink fairy costume… Merry Christmas from all of us and thank you for all of your support over the last few weeks. It really has made a massive difference.","d":"2006-12-24","t":"Christmas Eve 2006","u":"/2006/12/24/christmas-eve-2006/"},{"c":"Christian and I are currently at St. George’s. He got a temperature yesterday and as he is very neutropenic he can’t fight infection. He is on antibiotics and is happy so I am hoping we get home later today or tomorrow. His Hickman line has become slightly dislodged so they struggled to get blood out of it last night but they got there in the end. He may need that replaced soon.","d":"2006-12-21","t":"Neutropenia","u":"/2006/12/21/neutropenia/"},{"c":"December 2006 – Juliette and Chris Norris asked their guest at their wedding to donate to the Christian Blandford fund instead of giving presents, thank you very much Juliette and Chris.","d":"2006-12-15","t":"Wedding Gifts","u":"/2006/12/15/wedding-gifts/"},{"c":"Christian responded well to the antibiotics and we are now home. He needs another dose tomorrow and a community nurse will come to our house to administer it.","d":"2006-12-13","t":"At home","u":"/2006/12/13/at-home/"},{"c":"We came in to the Royal Marsden today for chemo and Christian temperature “spiked”. It would seem that he has an infection of some kind, probably viral. He has been given intravenous antibiotics and will need to stay overnight as the next dose is due at 1.00am. From tomorrow, it will be due every 24 hours so we may be able to go home.","d":"2006-12-12","t":"A Spike","u":"/2006/12/12/427/"},{"c":"We have just got back from the Royal Marsden. Christian had two different Chemotherapy drugs, Etoposide and Carboplatin. Carboplatin is given over an hour. Etoposide is also given as an hour drip but for 3 consecutive days, so he had it on Sunday, today and is due to go back for the last dose tomorrow. Yesterday he had a great day, Henry came with us and the staff at the Royal Marsden put on a pantomime in the afternoon which was very good. Before anybody asks, I was not drafted in at the last moment… He slept well last night and has been very happy until the nausea kicked in this morning. We have a couple of different drugs which will, hopefully keep the nausea under control. The next dose will come in the new year when he will have the Etoposide again, this time he will have it with Cyclophosphamide which has to be given overnight with a hydrating drip.","d":"2006-12-11","t":"Panto","u":"/2006/12/11/panto/"},{"c":"The biopsy result finally came through today and the growth in Christian’s leg was confirmed to be a reoccurrence of the Clear Cell Sarcoma. We are taking him for his first Chemo on Sunday and he will stay in overnight so they can keep an eye on him. He may be home during the day on Monday but will have to go back for a second drug on Tuesday. His treatment will be every three weeks after that for 18 weeks followed by the “high dose” chemotherapy. His is recovering from the biopsy but is still a bit sore and isn’t walking on it yet. Other than that he has been in very fine spirits.","d":"2006-12-08","t":"Confirmation","u":"/2006/12/08/confirmation/"},{"c":"We took Christian to Stanmore Orthopedic Hospital today for another bone biopsy. It all went fine and the surgeons are confident that they got a decent sample this time. He is a bit sore but was allowed home. The results may take over a week but we are (sort of) hoping they come quicker so the treatment can begin.","d":"2006-12-04","t":"Bone Biopsy","u":"/2006/12/04/bone-biopsy/"},{"c":"Christian had a Hickman Line fitted today, they also took a sample of bone marrow from his hips for testing. The operation went fine and he is now at home and relatively happy, if a bit concerned about the tube going into his chest… The results from the Bone biopsy came back today and unfortunately they were “inconclusive”. This means that he will need to go back in and get another biopsy before treatment can begin, we haven’t got a date for this yet. Tomorrow we are going into the Royal Marsden to see Cathy Pritchard Jones who is back from holiday, she wants a couple of tests redone including the chest and leg x-rays. He is also going to get a kidney test (as one of the chemo drugs could effect it) and some blood tests. On a lighter note, Henry lost his first tooth today. Photos to come…","d":"2006-11-29","t":"Bone Biopsy – Inconclusive","u":"/2006/11/29/bone-biopsy-inconclusive/"},{"c":"Christian had the bone biopsy today, it all went fine and they got a good sample. We will not get the results until next week so the Hickman line insertion is going to wait until then. He was in pretty good form all day, the biopsy was quite intrusive so he’ll be a bit sore for a few days.","d":"2006-11-22","t":"The Bone Biopsy","u":"/2006/11/22/the-bone-biopsy/"},{"c":"We met with the Doctors at the Royal Marsden today to discuss Christian’s treatment. He will start his chemo shortly after the biopsy and the fitting of the Hickman line next week, maybe as early as Friday 24th. His chemo will be a lot more aggressive than the last treatment with a strong dose every three weeks for 21 weeks. At the end of this he will get a very intensive dose which will completely wipe out his bone marrow and he will then need a bone marrow transplant. We will have prepared for this by taking some of his healthy bone marrow out in a few weeks. Christian will need to be admitted for this final dose and is likely to be in hospital and very sick for a month or so before he recovers. After this other treatment may be required, including radiotherapy and/or surgery. Christian is now strong and healthy and we are confident he is in excellent hands, this gives us hope for the upcoming year.","d":"2006-11-17","t":"Hope","u":"/2006/11/17/hope/"},{"c":"Wednesday 15th November 2006 The good news is that the MRI scan and the CT scan results show that there has been no spreading anywhere beyond his lower left femur (knee). In order to confirm the fact that it is a return of the clear cell sarcoma he needs to have a bone biopsy which will be done in Stanmore Hospital early next week. The results from that should take a couple of days, but they would be very surprised if it’s anything else. Christian is already booked into The Marsden next Thursday to fit a Hickman line (like the portacath he had before but with two points of access) and they will take a sample of bone marrow at that time to check if there has been any spreading there. The exact protocol for treatment will be decided after the results of the bone biopsy but is likely to be every three weeks with alternate drugs. One of these will be an outpatient treatment and the other he will have to stay in overnight. After a series of courses (in about 18 weeks) he will be admitted for intensive chemotherapy which will be administered as an inpatient at the Royal Marsden over two weeks. Claudia and I would like to thank all our friends and family for their support, it really makes a difference. I will try to keep this site updated with the technical stuff as quickly as possible.","d":"2006-11-15","t":"MRI and CT results","u":"/2006/11/15/442/"},{"c":"Friday 10th November 2006 After a year of peace, Christian had a Bone Scan on Wednesday because he has been having a sore knee. It appears that there is a “an area of increased uptake on the Lower Femur of the left knee”. The most likely reason is that the same cancer he had has come back in his bones. He is booked in for a MRI on Monday and a CT scan on Tuesday, after that they will hopefully be able to determine the best next step. He is likely to need a biopsy and then secondary chemotherapy. Sorry to be the bearer of bad news….","d":"2006-11-10","t":"Shattering News","u":"/2006/11/10/shattering-news/"},{"c":"All is good in the Blandford household at the moment, Christian has become a dancer…","d":"2005-11-15","t":"All is good","u":"/2005/11/15/all-is-good/"},{"c":"Sunday 23rd October Christian had his last chemo three weeks ago. He got a temperature on Thursday evening when he was still neutropenic from the chemotherapy. We took him into St George’s and he has spent the weekend in and out, getting regular intravenous antibiotics. The doctors think that it is probably viral and will therefore not be a problem for his body to fight but it takes 2-3 days to discover if an infection is bacterial. The protocol is to treat it as though it were bacterial (hence the antibiotics) until proven otherwise. Hopefully by this evening no signs of bacteria on the blood samples taken on Thursday will mean that he is in the clear and we can stop the course of antibiotics. He was quite poorly on Thursday but has been fine for the last couple of days. Hopefully this will be the last time that we have to go into hospital for something like this… On a side note, it is very rewarding to go back to St George’s and speak to the nurses who are so happy with the money I was given as sponsorship. The money has not yet been spent but I am convinced that it will really help. Thanks again for your generosity.","d":"2005-10-23","t":"Thank you","u":"/2005/10/23/thank-you/"},{"c":"Christian has been very well recently, hence the lack of updates. His last chemotherapy is scheduled in less than two weeks, which is an important milestone that we’ve been looking forward to. I have finally collected all the sponsorship money at the final amount raised is over £47,000. Thanks very much to all of you for your support. I have received a couple of letters from St. George’s which were very nice, they are here andhere.","d":"2005-08-18","t":"Thank you from St George’s","u":"/2005/08/18/thank-you-from-st-georges/"},{"c":"","d":"2005-08-02","t":"We made it!","u":"/2005/08/02/we-made-it/"},{"c":"Well he’s home. We need to pop back to the hospital tomorrow to make sure he’s recovering from the chemo leak but are still hoping to fly to Spain in the evening . He’s enjoying his birthday so far and we’re having a little party for him later.","d":"2005-07-19","t":"Christian’s Birthday","u":"/2005/07/19/christians-birthday/"},{"c":"The chemotherapy went ahead at The Royal Marsden today. Unfortunately there was a complication with one of the three drugs. One of them is a slow drip over 4 hours and the needle slipped out of his portacath in the last few minutes and leaked into him. Bizarrely enough the chemotherapy is far more dangerous out of the bloodstream than in it and so Christian will have to stay in overnight so he can be monitored. He needs to have cream applied every 2 hours, it will feel, to him, like a burn beneath the skin. Claudia will be spending the night with him but we have been told he should be released in the morning. We hope so as tomorrow is his second birthday. We have no real plans as we were hoping to be in Spain but we’ll certainly have more fun at home than at the Hospital…","d":"2005-07-18","t":"More Chemo","u":"/2005/07/18/457/"},{"c":"We’ve had a couple of nights at St George’s with Christian and he has been put on oral antibiotics and sent home. It took that much time because the doctors wanted to make sure that it was not a serious infection which would need more heavy duty antibiotics and he kept “spiking” temperature. We will be going to the Royal Marsden tomorrow and if he is well enough they will give him the chemotherapy he didn’t have Friday. Henry is very excited because now that it’s school holidays he’ll be coming along, and they’ve got great toys there. Claudia keeps bleating on about the fact that she and Christian were taken from The Royal Marsden to St George’s by ambulance and I haven’t mentioned it. Apparently it was very exciting. While I was at St George’s, I spoke to Francis, the nurse who will administer the money we have raised. As the amount raised has grown, its effect will become more significant. They, apparently, got turned down a year ago for a grant to improve the treatment room which is seriously in need of modernisation. This will now be possible. They are also getting a new waiting room (until now parents have had to wait in the kids play room until a bed is available). Whilst the room has been allocated for the waiting room, the money wasn’t there for chairs and curtains and so it has been delayed. This should now be taken care of.","d":"2005-07-17","t":"2 Hospitals…","u":"/2005/07/17/2-hospitals/"},{"c":"Friday 15th July Christian was due to be having his chemotherapy at the Royal Marsden today. Unfortunately he has had a high temperature since yesterday afternoon which is a sign of infection. Claudia took him to the Royal Marsden where they started him on antibiotics and then brought him to St George’s where I am spending the night with him at the, now famous, Pinkney ward. He has had a bad day with Claudia and was quite upset most of the day. Fortunately for me, by the time I arrived the antibiotics had kicked in. They have taken bloods and will grow cultures to try to identify the bug so they can decide what the best antibiotic is for the job. That will probably take a couple of days. We were hoping to go to Begur in Spain Monday, and my mum and sisters and all their families were joining us there next week for another week. We are still hoping to get there for the second week to join my family. Most of the money has come in now, thank you very much. If you were kind enough to sponsor me and haven’t got around to paying please either send me a cheque or e-mail me for my bank detail for direct transfer. For what it’s worth Christian finally fell asleep tonight at 9.00pm when the sun started to go down. I wish those blackout blinds were already here…","d":"2005-07-15","t":"At The Pinckney","u":"/2005/07/15/at-the-pinckney/"},{"c":"First things first, Christian has been pretty well recently hence the lack of updates. His hair is growing back a bit and his speech is coming on very well. In true Blandford/Parish style, it is now tricky to keep him quiet. Yesterday was the 10km run that I have been talking about. Imanaged to drag myself around the full distance in a leisurely 56 minutes, and have been barely able to move since. If you were kind enough to sponsor me please send a cheque to me at home. Thanks to your generosity and Morgan Stanley’s matching, the Pinkney ward at St George’s will receive over £45,000. It should make a real difference.","d":"2005-07-03","t":"The London 10km Run","u":"/2005/07/03/the-london-10km-run/"},{"c":"We made it through the difficult bit after the chemotherapy by giving Christian water from a syringe every 10 minutes, which he managed to keep down. He is now happy again and is eating and drinking well. There are now only a couple of weeks left to the run! As you can see from the total at the top of this page the sponsorship is going fantastically well. This will make a real difference to the comfort of the children being treated at St George’s. I have discussed the money with the sister in charge and the ideas so far are : 1. New curtains and blackout blinds 2. High Chairs 3. Bed Pans (they can’t get any on their budget!) 4. New child friendly decor or pictures 5. Children’s cutlery and plates 6. New toys and budget to replace toys when they get damaged Thanks again to all of those people who have generously pledged sponsorship. Because there are now 9 people running from Morgan Stanley, they will match up to £18,000! so your donation could be worth twice what you give.","d":"2005-06-19","t":"More News","u":"/2005/06/19/more-news/"},{"c":"Christian went to the Royal Marsden yesterday for a triple dose of chemotherapy and some tests . As he is now over 12kg (just) he had the full dose, until now he has been on 70%. It seems to have hit him fairly hard and he’s been a bit sickly today not being able to keep food or drink down for long. We’re hoping this doesn’t last long as if there’s a danger of him getting dehydrated he’ll have to be admitted to hospital so he can get IV fluids. The good news is that both tests that he had yesterday (a chest x-ray and an ultra sound) were clear.","d":"2005-06-04","t":"Chemo","u":"/2005/06/04/chemo-2/"},{"c":"Friday 27th May We were hoping to be heading to our villa in Spain tomorrow for a week’s relaxation over half term. Unfortunately Christian’s neutrophils are a bit low. This means that even though he is very happy at the moment, he is susceptible to infections, and a it’s not advisable for him to be too far from home. This means our villa is free for the next two weeks and we’ll be happy if anybody can make use of it. The details are herewww.villabegur.com. A small contribution to the sponsorship fund may be required depending on financial circumstances!","d":"2005-05-27","t":"Villa on offer…","u":"/2005/05/27/villa-on-offer/"},{"c":"Wednesday 11th May We were in St George’s today for Christian to have an operation to have a new portacath fitted. He is now home and all is fine. The only drama was that an antibiotic was given too quickly (it should have been an infusion over an hour and it wasn’t) and he got “red man syndrome”. This meant he swelled up and was his skin was very itchy, some drugs soon cleared up the problem. Claudia is taking Christian back to the Royal Marsden tomorrow for a triple dose of chemotherapy. He is now just having the three weekly triple dose, and no longer has the weekly single dose. The good news is that we are now halfway through his treatment. All down hill from here…","d":"2005-05-11","t":"A new portacath","u":"/2005/05/11/a-new-portacath/"},{"c":"Christian had an operation on Thursday to take out the portacath and came out on the same day. He’s got a canular in his hand (a needle and tube) which is being left in as he needs more antibiotics. We are taking him back to St. George’s this afternoon for the last dose and they also want to take some bloods to make sure the infection has cleared up. Claudia is taking him to the Royal Marsden on Monday to discuss the next stage and we’ll find out when the portacath is going to be replaced then","d":"2005-05-07","t":"News","u":"/2005/05/07/news/"},{"c":"Good news and bad news: the good news is that Christian has been in a fantastic mood for the last couple of days, he was very taken with his cousins Elizabeth and Thomas who came around for a barbecue yesterday (Elena took some photos hereand here). The bad news is that the blood cultures from Friday’s blood tests show that the bug in his portacath has not been cleared up. He will need the portacath removed in an operation, then a series of antibiotics and then the portacath replaced in a different operation. He will probably go into St George’s tomorrow for the first operation. His hemoglobin levels are a bit low too so he’s going in to St George’s for a blood transfusion this afternoon, which will take a few hours.","d":"2005-05-02","t":"Good and Bad News","u":"/2005/05/02/good-and-bad-news/"},{"c":"Christian has been home all week, is eating and drinking well and seems very happy. We are waiting for the antibiotics course to finish this weekend to see if his infection comes back or not. If it does come back, there may be no option but to return to St George’s to have his portacath removed and replaced. Let’s keep our fingers crossed. The good news is that the sponsorship is going fantastically well. Claudia’s company Porcelanosa have very generously offered to match sponsorship for £2,000 too. MorganStanley will match £2,000 per employee involved so we may persuade them to match all the money raised by getting more of my colleagues to run! All good stuff.","d":"2005-04-29","t":"Christian at home","u":"/2005/04/29/christian-at-home/"},{"c":"We got back from St George’s yesterday. Christian is on intravenous antibiotics once a day which are being administered by a community nurse. He has the same bug as before (an infection of the portacath) but the doctors are hoping that a full intravenous course will clear it up. If not he will have to have an operation to remove and replace his portacath and will be back at St George’s for a week or so. I am doing a 10km run on the 3rd July. I have been wondering what would be the best place to raise money for and have decided after our stay at St George’s that the money will have most effect there. There is a ward called the Pinkney Ward which takes most of the kids with Cancer and they have their own charity administered by the very efficient Sister in charge. You can stipulate where you want the money spent and, depending on how much I raise, I have some good ideas. First on the list is some high chairs (there are none) and black out blinds (Christian wakes as soon as the sun comes up) but I have plenty of other ideas if I raise more. Morgan Stanley, my very understanding employers, have offered to match anything I raise up to £2000. Claudia and I will personally do the same, this means your generous donation could be worth 4 times what you give. Thanks in advance…","d":"2005-04-22","t":"Fund Raising","u":"/2005/04/22/fund-raising/"},{"c":"I’ve just got back from a night with Christian on the ward at St George’s so forgive me if this all comes out as a jumbled mess. All weekend Christian was very happy, eating and drinking well and generally having fun. Sunday night something hit him and he was throwing up during the night. He was due to go to The Royal Marsden for a checkup and some drugs to boost his white blood cell count on Monday so we went early and spent all day there. He had a slightly high temperature and he was given some antibiotics. By the end of the day he seemed a bit better so we were sent home with the strict instructions to phone if his temperature “spiked” again. By 9.00pm his temperature was up to 38.7 and however hard I tapped the thermometer it wouldn’t go lower. As Claudia spent a lot of Sunday night up with Christian, I took him to the ST George’s Hospital. He has now been given two more types of antibiotics until they get results of blood tests which show what particular bug he has. One of the concerns is that he may have either an infection in his portacath or the same infection has come back from a couple of weeks ago. If this is the case he may need to have an operation to have it replaced. If, however, it is a different infection it may be treatable at home by either oral antibiotics or by once a day intravenous antibiotics that the community nurse would administer. The care at St George’s was very good last night and although it is not as comfortable as the Royal Marsden it wasn’t too bad.","d":"2005-04-19","t":"A Spike","u":"/2005/04/19/a-spike/"},{"c":"Christian came home today. He has been given an oral antibiotic instead of an intravenous one and, as such, he does not need to go into hospital for it. He seems in pretty good spirits, if a little bit disorientated.","d":"2005-04-05","t":"","u":"/2005/04/05/485/"},{"c":"Henry and I returned from the slopes today. Unfortunately Christian has not been well in our absence. The portacath (a tube fitted to an artery near the heart to allow access the the bloodstream) has become infected. He and Claudia have spent all of the week at The Royal Marsden where he has been on antibiotics. He needs a further 10 days of treatment which, apparently, he has to finish off at St George’s, apparently they need the beds at the Royal Marsden for chemotherapy treatment. We are not very happy about this as The Royal Marsden is far more comfortable and, we feel, he gets far better care there. We are trying to find an alternative hospital or another arrangement, for example a private nurse to come to the house and administer the antibiotics 4 times a day. We should find out tomorrow what the plan is. The good news is that the antibiotics seem to be working and he is very happy in himself at the moment. He has had an nasal gastric tube fitted which looks a bit scary but is providing him with lots of nutrition overnight to build up his strength.","d":"2005-04-03","t":"Problems…","u":"/2005/04/03/problems/"},{"c":"I have just brought Christian home. He has a nasty cough but they think that it is viral, not bacterial and therefore not any more dangerous than if he wasn’t neutropenic. Claudia is taking him in for a checkup on Sunday morning to make sure that he is still OK. Henry and I will be going off together for a week’s father/son bonding on a ski trip which was booked months ago. I thought about canceling it but Claudia wouldn’t let me, and if she did, Henry would never forgive me!","d":"2005-03-25","t":"","u":"/2005/03/25/home-4/"},{"c":"Claudia took Christian down to the Royal Marsden today for his chemotherapy. Unfortunately he’s not very well so they have decided to keep him in. I’m on my way down there to take over and Claudia will be home tonight.","d":"2005-03-24","t":"At The Royal Marsden","u":"/2005/03/24/at-the-royal-marsden-2/"},{"c":"Claudia brought him home today. He seems a bit better; as he is going in to the Marsden tomorrow for chemo, they were happy for him to spend the night at home.","d":"2005-03-23","t":"Home","u":"/2005/03/23/home-5/"},{"c":"Christian had a high temperature yesterday so I took him to St George’s. I spent the night with him there and he has now been transferred to the Royal Marsden after much pleading from us. He has to stay in hospital for a couple of days as he needs intravenous antibiotics. The chemotherapy knocks the white blood cell count which makes it difficult for him to fight infections without help. We are hoping he’ll be back home later this week. Claudia is currently at the Royal Marsden with him.","d":"2005-03-21","t":"A temperature spike","u":"/2005/03/21/a-temperature-spike/"},{"c":"I have started to get calls from people asking me to update the site and I guess I shouldn’t just write when there is a problem. Christian is still pretty good, he had a couple of niggly days after the chemo, but he is now pretty happy most of the time. For some reason he has taken to waking up at 5.30 – 6.30 am every day, but that is not a major problem. He is going in on Friday for a dose of Vincristrine (the weekly chemo drug) and we are hoping he continues to be a robust as he has been so far.","d":"2005-03-17","t":"","u":"/2005/03/17/an-update/"},{"c":"Just a quick note to say that Christian has been very happy for the last couple of days. He is eating and drinking well and is looking much better. He is a lot stronger than he has been for the last month and is walking around and playing normally. He is very giggly and has spent a lot of the time looking like this… On a separate note, Claudia and I would like to thank all of you for your kind words, generous gifts and kind hearted actions over the last few weeks. We are very fortunate to have so many thoughtful friends and such loving families. Claudia is panicking that she has not written any thank you letters, but I guess that’s Claudia…","d":"2005-03-08","t":"Happy…","u":"/2005/03/08/happy/"},{"c":"Christian was due back at the Royal Marsden today for a bone scan. The idea was to give him a sedative and then he would fall asleep and would lie still while the scan took place. The doctors even hoped that he would remain sleeping as they inserted a nasal gastric tube. Unfortunately two doses of sedative were not enough and Claudia had to hold him down as the scan took place. The good news is that the bone scan was all clear and the results of the marrow test last week were clear too. So all the tests have been done and there has been no spreading of the cancer that they can see outside of the kidney. The pathologist’s report on the kidney also came back today. It confirmed the fact that it was a stage 2 clear cell sarcoma. The plan for post operation treatment has now been drawn up. He will be taking 3 different types of chemotherapy drugs, one which is weekly for 6 weeks and the other two are every three weeks for 6 months to all run concurrently. There will be no need for radiotherapy. Bearing in mind we were expecting chemotherapy for a year this is very good news. He took one dose today and next Friday he will take the first triple dose. All the treatment is being done as an outpatient at the Royal Marsden. Christian has lost quite a lot weight recently, which is why the doctors are keen to get nutrients into him with the tube up his nose. He has, however, started eating again and we are hoping this continues so he builds up his strength for next Friday.","d":"2005-03-03","t":"Bone Scan","u":"/2005/03/03/bone-scan/"},{"c":"A few people have asked me how Henry is coping with all of this. This evening, just after I put him to bed I asked him if anything was worrying him. Henry said “Yes, when Christian grows up will he be a man without any hair even on his legs?”. I explained that after the medicine stops, his hair will come back and by the time he is three he will be back to normal. He seemed happy with this but then said something else was worrying him, I asked him what it was and he replied “When I grow up I don’t know if I want to be an astronaut or a normal man, because I want to be both”. Now there is a conundrum. Christian is well. A bit delicate, but recovering well.","d":"2005-02-28","t":"Henry","u":"/2005/02/28/henry/"},{"c":"We have, remarkably, been sent home. To quote the surgeon, “it is a record breaking recovery from a five hour operation”.","d":"2005-02-26","t":"Going Home!","u":"/2005/02/26/508/"},{"c":"Christian is now out of intensive care and into his own room in St George’s. The phone number there is 0704 6200076 (x3517), Claudia is there tonight. He is sleeping lots and whimpering a little bit but is being kept comfortable by pain killers. Most of the tubes and monitors that he was on yesterday have gone so he looks a lot less scary. We may be moving him back to The Royal Marsden or The Portland in the next couple of days if he is well enough. The prize for “best tough love e-mail” goes to Neil Gillespie for the following… Great to hear all went well. Just imagine if it was you and 10% of your body weight. They’d need a crane! Neil As if coping with cancer in your child wasn’t enough….","d":"2005-02-24","t":"Tough love","u":"/2005/02/24/tough-love/"},{"c":"The surgery seems to have gone very well, Christian was in theatre for 5 hours. The surgeon, Keith Holmes is confident he removed all the tumour. It was 10cm x 15cm and 1.1Kg, almost 10% of his body weight. He is now recovering at the Pediatric Intensive Care Unit at St. George’s. I have come home for a couple of hours and will be going back to spend the night with him there. Claudia will be home tonight.","d":"2005-02-23","t":"The Surgery","u":"/2005/02/23/513/"},{"c":"We took him from the Royal Marsden to St George’s this morning for some blood tests. He will have the operation there tomorrow morning. We are now home and as he was in such a good mood I took some photos to show you the new haircut. By the way, Claudia received this from a family friend in the US who is a cancer specialist… From: Terrie Pustilnik [mailto:tbpmd@swbell.net] Sent: 19 February 2005 2005 17:35 To: ‘Claudia Blandford’ Cc: harold.behrman@yale.edu; bob.parish@enscitech.com Subject: RE: Christian I hope Christian’s tests have come back OK. I am praying and thinking about him daily. There is a very recent article looking at clear cell sarcoma of the kidney in the Journal of Clinical Oncology (deb vol 22). They had 40 children and were trying to compare 2 different ways of doing chemotherapy. The chemotherapy that they were using was vincristine, doxorubicin and dactinomycin. The patients ranged in stage from 1 through 4. (Stage is determined by seeing if there has been any spread of the cancer or not). Stage I is early and Stage IV means there has been spread . Patients had surgery and usually some radiation therapy to the area where the cancer was following surgery. It appears that the longer chemotherapy treatment was associated with a longer survival time. The overall 8 year survival was very good at 87%. This means that even though your son may have an aggressive cancer, the odds are in his favor that he is going to do well. (But he may be in for a fair amount of treatment). Christian is hopefully stage 1 or 2, so this sounds positive.","d":"2005-02-22","t":"","u":"/2005/02/22/advice/"},{"c":"Christian has been much better for the last couple of days. The antibiotics seem to have cleared up the infection and he is eating and drinking, if somewhat selectively. He had the operation today to take a sample of bone marrow and we should get the results for that tomorrow. He also had a tube put down his nose to make it easier to feed him, this lasted about 5 minutes after he came to, when he pulled it out. Oh well; he’s eating well at the moment so it’s not a major problem, we may have to try that again. Unfortunately there is not enough time for the bone scan now until after he recovers from the operation on Wednesday (when the kidney and tumour get removed). We should get the results from the bone marrow tomorrow. We should take comfort from the fact that the doctors are very confident that the cancer hasn’t spread and I guess the fact that he was playing football with his Nana this evening should confirm that. Tomorrow we are taking him to St George’s in the afternoon were he is getting some tests to prepare him for Wednesday’s operation. We should be able to bring him home for a night before taking him back to the hospital were Keith Holmes will perform the surgery. After the operation he may stay there or be moved somewhere else for recovery. By the way, I did take my clippers in yesterday and cropped his hair, and he does look like his dad. He also looks like he lives in a caravan and has a dog on a string. I’ll take a photo of him tomorrow and share it with you…","d":"2005-02-21","t":"Some improvement","u":"/2005/02/21/some-improvement/"},{"c":"Christian has still been a bit unwell today so he’s been given antibiotics. The good news is that he managed to stay still for the CT head scan without anesthetic, and that was negative. The bone scan and bone marrow sample will have to wait until Monday. His chemotherapy will wait until tomorrow too when , hopefully, he’ll feel better. Christian will soon look just like his dad; his hair has started to fall out so I’m taking my clippers in tomorrow and he’ll get a grade 1!","d":"2005-02-18","t":"Antibiotics","u":"/2005/02/18/antibiotics/"},{"c":"You may remember that Christian was due in hospital today to have a head scan and have a sample of bone marrow taken. He needs a general anesthetic for these and he unfortunately is not well enough to have it. He has a bit of a temperature and his breathing is a bit too fast, they suspect it’s a chest infection. He has been given antibiotics and will be staying in the Royal Marsden for a night or two for further observations. We hope to reschedule those two tests for when he’s better. We still hope to go ahead with the bone scan tomorrow. Next Wednesday’s operation should still go ahead as planned.","d":"2005-02-17","t":"An Infection","u":"/2005/02/17/521/"},{"c":"I almost didn’t update the site today because there is no real news. But I guess you may like to know that Christian has been in a lovely mood for most of the day. (Auntie) Sam and (Uncle) Paul came around and he spent most of the day happy and was very excited with his dancing Dora the Explorer doll.","d":"2005-02-13","t":"Dora","u":"/2005/02/13/dora/"},{"c":"The doctors decided to keep Christian in for further examination as his blood pressure was a bit high. The good news is that he was released earlier today and we are now home.","d":"2005-02-12","t":"Home","u":"/2005/02/12/home-6/"},{"c":"We are still hoping to take him home later today as he is off the drip. He has a bit of a rash on his face from an adverse reaction to the drug that he was given to reduce his blood pressure. He is due a course of chemotherapy, and they want to monitor his reaction to that as well as how he fares without the fluids drip. If all is well we’ll bring him home, Henry will be happy to see him again!","d":"2005-02-11","t":"At The Marsden","u":"/2005/02/11/at-the-marsden/"},{"c":"The good news is that he has started eating and drinking, mostly chocolate and biscuits, but at least he is feeding himself. We should be able to take him home tomorrow. The less good news is that the pathologists have finished deliberating and have decided that it is, after all, not a Wilm’s tumour. They have decided that what he has is a clear cell sarcoma of the kidney. This is a lot less common than a Wilm’s tumour (about 5% of Kidney tumours).This kind of cancer is a lot more prone to spreading, we know it hasn’t spread to the lungs but now they need to check that it hasn’t spread to his brain or bones. They will need to do a bone scan, a CT head scan and take a sample of bone marrow. Kathy Pritchard-Jones feels that from his behaviour it is very unlikely that any spreading has occurred. All these test will be done next week. Assuming no spreading the prognosis is very similar to Wilm’s tumour but he will need a far longer period of treatment post operation (probably about a year of chemotherapy). They will bring the surgery forward to reduce the risk of the cancer spreading before surgery. The date currently suggested is the 23rd February 2005. He will probably need to stay at St. George’s Hospital for about a week after the operation.","d":"2005-02-10","t":"A New Diagnosis","u":"/2005/02/10/532/"},{"c":"I stayed overnight with Christian at the Royal Marsden. The main concern is that he is not eating or drinking. In order for him not to get dehydrated he is on a drip and they are considering putting a tube down his throat so they can nutrients into him. It’s not as bad as it sounds, he’s a bit niggly, but not too uncomfortable and is sleeping well. Claudia is going to stay there with him tonight. We are not sure how long he will stay in hospital, he will be allowed home when he is drinking on his own. He is now neutropenic (has low blood white cells) from the chemotherapy so he can not have paracetamol. He has been on Codeine and Morphine as pain killers and will hopefully not maintain a recreational taste for them.","d":"2005-02-09","t":"","u":"/2005/02/09/news-2/"},{"c":"10.00am – Christian is not reacting very well to the chemotherapy. One of the side effects is a sore jaw, and this seems to be making him uncomfortable when he eats and drinks. The doctors were a bit concerned so we brought him to St. George’s Hospital last night and Claudia and he stayed the night. He has been on a drip to rehydrate him and we are now waiting for more news. 10.55am – We are taking him back to the Royal Marsden for further checks.","d":"2005-02-08","t":"Chemotherapy effects","u":"/2005/02/08/chemotherapy-effects/"},{"c":"(Very) Good news – CT scan confirms no spreading of cancer into lungs or, in fact, anywhere else.(Slightly) Bad news – biopsy shows sign of muscle in the tissue, this means it is either a variant of Wilms tumor (fetal rhabdomyoblastic) or it is a completely different cancer (rhabdomyosarcoma). This other cancer would be treated in the same way as a Wilm’s tumor so Kathy Pritchard-Jones suggests we start on the chemotherapy straight away. It would be very unusual for rhabdomyosarcoma not to have spread out of the kidney so Kathy still feels that the Wilm’s tumor is the far more likely problem. They will do more analysis of the biopsy to help decide. Christian had his first lot of Chemotherapy at the Royal Marsden at about 5.00pm.","d":"2005-02-04","t":"Good News and Bad","u":"/2005/02/04/good-news-and-bad/"},{"c":"Went back to St. George’s because a urine infection had been detected from Monday’s tests. Antibiotics administered intravenously and orally. Christian a bit niggly today…","d":"2005-02-03","t":"An Infection","u":"/2005/02/03/an-infection/"},{"c":"Keith Holmes performs a biopsy at St. George’s and fits a portacath (a direct access to the bloodstream for drugs and removal of blood). Christian woke up a bit upset but was happy for most of the afternoon.","d":"2005-02-02","t":"Biopsy","u":"/2005/02/02/543/"},{"c":"We took him to the Marsden where we met Kathy Prichard-Jones, she is the professor of pediatric oncology and happens to run a large team of researchers who research Wilms tumors. Wilms tumors have been “curable” for 20 years or so and 90% of children apparently make a full recovery. The treatment is chemotherapy for a few weeks, followed by surgery to remove the kidney and growth followed by more chemotherapy. He would need to have a biopsy and a CT scan to confirm that it is Wilms tumor and that it hasn’t spread anywhere else (unlikely from the fact that he is acting happy).","d":"2005-02-01","t":"First Visit to The Royal Marsden","u":"/2005/02/01/547/"},{"c":"Christian had a lump in his tummy so we took him to Jake McKinnon, the pediatrician who originally diagnosed his reflux a year ago. He was immediately concerned and we took him for an ultrasound and an x-ray which seemed to confirm a Wilms tumor in the kidney. Blood and urine tests were taken. Keith Holmes is a pediatric surgeon who happened to be consulting at the same surgery on that day and he agreed that this was the most likely scenario and referred us to the Royal Marsden Hospital.","d":"2005-01-31","t":"The awful news","u":"/2005/01/31/the-awful-news/"},{"c":"This is a copy of the original blog we wrote to keep our family and friends informed when Christian was being treated Christian was born on 19th July 2003 at 10.25am","d":"2003-07-19","t":"","u":"/2003/07/19/christians-story/"}]