Michelle Abell
David's page
Fundraising for The Children's Foundation
Story
Hello everyone and thank you so much for visiting my just giving page.
The recipient I have chosen to benefit from my fundraising is The Great North Children’s Hospital, this is the children’s hospital situated within the Royal Victoria Hospital in Newcastle . I chose this as my beneficiary as they have provided the care for my daughter Emily after she was born with a Cloacal Anomaly condition. This is a very complex situation and is so rare; doctors only see one case every 5 years. Emily’s medical team at the RVI has never seen such a severe case as my daughters. The condition will affect Emily for the rest of her life and so far she has been to theatre well over 100 times from simple procedures that last 1 or 2 hours to more complex operations that last in excess of 12 hours.
Emily will always be in and out of hospital having operations for the rest of her life and hopefully with advances in medicine one day she can have children of her own. She tries as best she can to live a happy go lucky life as a six year old, who loves her horse riding and dancing and all things pink. But once behind closed doors before bed at night and before school in the morning the reality of how complicated her little life is in respect of her daily medical care as it hits home again. Every night before bed Emily has to have various tubes put in to manage her conditions while she is sleeping. Every few days she has to spend an hour on the toilet to manage her condition for school, this is the hardest part as it means no running around for a whole hour, she does all this with such a smile and understands she isn’t different, just special.
To most just this little snippet of what Emily has to go through everyday may bring a tear, but to Emily and everyone who loves her it’s another reason to thank all at Newcastle RVI for Emily being here today, without their help we wouldn’t have this story to tell.
In order to raise for the above charity I will be competing in a 379 mile race across Lake Baikal in Siberia . It will be a solo effort totally un-supported for the full 14 day race duration. I will have to battle against weather hitting -30, walking across frozen ice, battling through snow drifts and much much more.
Please see the link to the race website:
http://www.extremeworldraces.com/races/siberian-black-ice-race/
Hey everyone, well i've had some great press coverage on the race and the fundraising im doing.
I was featured on Look North and BBC Radio Newcastle on friday and then in the Newcastle Journal and Newcastle Chronicle on Saturday which was great exposure for myself and this wonderful charity.
Please see the link to one of the stories:
Myself and all the team at The Childrens Foundation are so graetful for all your support.
Keep looking in for updates as we have so many more crazy ideas for fundraising and would love you all to be apart.
Why not follow @DaveGullane or @tcfcharity
See you all soon.