Hello,
My name is Katherine and I work as a renal nurse at the Royal Berkshire Hospital in Reading. My day to day work involves the monitoring and support of patients that have received or are waiting to receive a kidney transplant. Within the UK there are currently 8067 people on the transplant list. Which is a lot of people.
Public awareness is really important in getting this number down because kidneys do not unfortunately grow on trees. They come from people that have donated an organ and this is primarily via the organ donor register. One of the ways in which the profile of the donor register is raised is through the UK Transplant Games. A huge event currently in its 32nd year with all participating athletes recipients of a donated organ.
Which brings us to why I am raising money. The Royal Berkshire Hospital has sent a team to the transplant games for the last two years. For me these two years have been an amazing experience. Mostly in awe of those taking part as well as the friendships created and opportunities taken to say thank you to donor families.
So I have decided to set my own personal challenge and help raise money to send the Berkshire Royals to the Transplant Games next year. I'm far from athletic, that's a woeful understatement, so I don't envisage it to be easy.
The challenge is to swim one metre for every patient currently waiting on the UK transplant list. That works out at 8067 metres. Or eight kilometres, or five miles. It will probably be five hours of continuous swimming.
The date to do this is set for the 26th January 2010 and I am already in training.
So please help us send a team to Bath in 2010 and play a role in increasing awareness for the need for organ donors.
Many thanks in advance and I hope you will take the time to check the
following two sites, and maybe even register yourself.
www.organdonation.nhs.uk
Update
Well it's now the big day and I'm sat here eating a bowl of porridge going through my strategy.....which is basically SWIM!! I'd just like to say a huge thankyou for everyone who has taken the time to sponsor me and help me raise my target of £1000.
Update:
2 days later and I've recovered enough to say YIPPEE - I MADE IT!!!!! 404 lengths completed in 3hrs 40 mins. I have to admit the first 70 were the hardest......but it's amazing how far dogged determination will get you! Again huge thanks to everyone who has sponsored/supported me - particularly my cheering squad on the day.
I can assure you the money raised will go a long way to help send an even bigger Berkshire Royals team to Bath this year for the 2010 transplant games.
A personal thanks too as completing this swim was a phenomenal experience and one which has made me think that maybe the channel isn't such a mad idea afterall :0)
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