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
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
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 & 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."
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.
2 kids electric ride on cars - Going to operations in a little electric car is far more fun and maybe less scary than on a wheelchair.
16 Night lights - little things are sometimes important
3 plug in electric portable heaters - bizarre but well needed
3 mini iPads - for the play specialist to carry around as a tool to help distract children when needed.
11 Whiteboards - for the kids' rooms
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.
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&E 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.