All is good in the Blandford household at the moment, Christian has become a dancer…
Tag Archives: The first round
Thank you
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.
Posted in Blog, Christian's Story, Fund Raising. Tagged with Christian's Story, St George's Hospital, The first round.
Thank you from St George’s
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.
Posted in Blog, Christian's Story, Fund Raising, Things We've Done. Tagged with Sponsorship, St George's Hospital, Thank you, The first round.
Christian’s Birthday
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.
More Chemo
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…
Posted in Blog, Christian's Story. Tagged with Chemotherapy, Christian's Story, The first round, The Royal Marsden.
2 Hospitals…
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.
Posted in Blog, Christian's Story. Tagged with Christian's Story, St George's Hospital, The first round, The Royal Marsden.
At The Pinckney
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…
Posted in Blog, Christian's Story. Tagged with Pinkney, St George's Hospital, The first round, The Royal Marsden.
The London 10km Run
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.
Posted in Blog, Christian's Story, Fund Raising. Tagged with 10km, London 10km, Peter, run, St George's Hospital, The first round.
More News
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.
Posted in Blog, Christian's Story, Fund Raising. Tagged with Christian's Story, Sponsorship, St George's Hospital, The first round.
