A Huge Thank You!

Friday 29th October.




Today we took the bulk of the fundraising money from the Snowdon Horseshoe charity walk to Basingstoke to present to the team who looked after me whilst I was undergoing my treatment.
We had an uneventful drive up from Bristol and arrived early enough to sneak in to the restaurant for a coffee and a pain au chocolate! We made our way to C floor and met Francis and Brendan Moran in their office as agreed. A short time later a photographer from the press office arrived with her camera and we made our way to C2 ward to say hello to the staff and have some photo’s taken. For Jessica and Chloe it was the first time they had been onto the ward. They commented on how light and airy the ward is and how friendly the staff were. We said hello to the team and all remarked on how well I looked. Sally, the ward sister didn’t even recognize me until I spoke! Everyone was full of smiles and pleased to see us. They were also amazed by how much money we had raised. So far we have raised the bulk of our target of £5k. We were pleased to hand over £4,762 today and still have the Just Giving page open until November 21st and have at least another £500 pledged still to come. The ward was just as I remembered it and there was an empty bed space in the room I occupied whilst I stayed there.
I would like to take this opportunity to thank everyone who has supported us and donated money to a very worthy cause. I would also like to give a very special thank you to all the team members who took part and went to the effort of raising the money and take the time to gather it in after the event; it’s not an easy task! So a huge thank you to- Jon Mason, Stephen Mason, Mark Adams, Steve Read, Dave Bates, Andy Jackson and Rhys Wickham. And also to my daughters Jessica and Chloe,to Mum and Dad and to Mum Bates who also raised money on our behalf. I would also like to give a massive pat on the back to Steve "Bumper" Treweeks and Jake who raised a significant amount of money for The Christie Hospital where Steve had his MOAS in 2007.




The money raised for Basingstoke Hospital will help go towards fitting out a new family room on C2 ward. It will be somewhere where patients and family can meet on the ward in a friendly and relaxed environment and save patients having to leave the ward to see their loved ones at a time when they often feel unwell. It will also help with infection control and be somewhere carers can relax at a time when they are under a lot of stress whilst loved ones are in surgery.
Whilst talking with Brendan Moran he showed me his waiting list of patients who require treatment at the hospital and already the schedule extends into the New Year with others still to have dates confirmed. Sadly it appears that PMP is becoming more common, with Mr Moran saying that the frequency had increased to 2-3 people per million per year. All the more reason to keep supporting the team that work so hard to help people like me. The team here work long hours and it isn’t uncommon to see Brendan, Tom and the team on the ward at 07:00 and still there at 23:00 (that certainly was the case on the day of my surgery). I can’t thank them enough.
So with this in mind we will continue to support them as long as we can.......plans are already in place to do more fundraising in various ways next year including a main event in the summer. Let’s see if we can’t beat this year’s total? In the mean time I will open another Just Giving page to run in the background allowing anyone who wishes to donate.

Once again, thank you all so much for your support, people like me need you.