Raising Funds for CLIC Sargent

Daniel was living in Cyprus with his mum and dad who were based there with the army.

First thing was when his mum became concerned that he suddenly had developed lots of bruising for no good reason.

It was bad timing because it was Easter weekend and the medical centers were a bit short staffed. Even so she decided to make an appointment to get Daniel looked at.

The staff at the medical center didn't really know what the problem was so referred Daniel to the local hospital.

24 hours later the whole family arrived back in the UK with one suitcase, the clothes they stood up in and an appointment at the Bristol children's hospital oncology unit.

Daniels leukemia was confirmed soon after.

So where were we well all this was going on, unfortunately we had gone off on a skiing vacation and I had switched my mobile off for about 3 days, something I will never do again.

The first we heard was when I thought I'll just put my mobile on and see if there were any messages. Well the phone went bananas there was message after message asking us to get in touch as soon as possible, it was obvious it wasn't good news.

They did have some support, Daniel's uncle and aunty immediately booked some holidays and went to Bristol to help out, his other Grandma and Grandad also went to visit and to see what they could do. Big problem was though that no one really had accommodation close enough to the hospital to put them up, they really needed to be close to Daniel at this critical time and to stay with him in the hospital.

This is where they were first introduced to CLIC Sargent who had two large houses very close to the hospital.

They were offered a room in one of the houses so that they could arrange for at least one of them to be with Daniel all the time but they also had somewhere to go with his little brother, still a baby, when they needed to.

The houses were beautifully kitted out including a fully fitted kitchen with play areas in the garden and a games room inside in fact everything you would need to live comfortably.

The support and counseling were also made available immediately, there were play assistants in the hospital and the family were quickly introduced to other families in a similar predicament, not that they were taking much on board at these early stages.

Meanwhile we cut short our holiday and asked our holiday insurance company to get us home. They were brilliant, they got us a first class flight out of Munich that same night and we got home the next day.

We didn't even realize we were in first class and just said no to everything we were offered during the flight.

Bet that was a first for the airline, they must have wondered what was going on.

We got to the hospital early that day to visit and to see Daniel. He was yellow, looked very ill and was about to start the battle of his life.

The doctors had explained that Daniel's treatment would last for 3 years (1 year longer than for a girl) and that he would need to be in remission for at least 5 years before the leukemia would be considered to be no more a threat for Daniel than anyone else, in other words he would be back to normal or as close as he could be.

I can't really go into the whole of the 3 years of treatment but I will say there were set backs and Daniel faced some very serious threats from infection during this period with emergency admissions to hospital for urgent treatment on several occasions, this was on top of the routine treatments of chemotherapy, lumber punctures, blood tests and a strict regime of medication morning and night.

It goes without saying that through the whole period of his treatment CLIC Sargent were there offering practical advice, counseling and helping the family, including home visits by the CLIC nurse and being introduced to others to form self help groups.

This was especially important during the first few months particularly as on top of everything else they had to re-locate back to the UK from Cyprus.

I will have lasting memories of cooking endless rounds of bacon and eggs to satisfy Daniel's craving. This happens as a result of taking the very strong steroids he had to have as a part of his medication. CLIC Sargent didn't help with that but then they can't do everything.

I have a huge admiration for his parents and the way they dealt with the crisis throughout the period of his illness, trying to live a normal happy family life.

The main photo for the lens above is of Daniel living in Germany going to his school's dining out night, now a happy 11 year old.

The photo in the garage is when he was caught in the act with his little brother using my tools as he neared the end of his treatment and was well on the road to recovery.

Not all the stories have a happy ending a close friend of Daniel's, a little girl, also contracted leukemia, the same strain that Daniel had, she very sadly got an infection which she didn't recover from.

The reason I mention this is to highlight that there is still much work to do improving the treatments and trying to eradicate the death of any child through the contraction of this very serious disease.

Besides the support role that is provided, another function of CLIC Sargent is the funding of research into the disease and the development of more effective treatments.

Any money that this lens generates through advertising revenue is going to be donated to charity and I have included links to allow you to access the CLIC Sargent website to see what they do and to go directly to them to make a donation.

I didn't know we would ever need the support that CLIC Sargent provide but we were very glad of it when we did.

Help us make sure they are still able to be there for other people when they are needed and can continue to support the important research work that continues to this day