Many of you will be aware of the problems our son had following his birth in November and that he spent the first 12 days of his life in the Neonatal Intensive Care and Special Care units in St Thomas' hospital in London.

To show our appreciation of the great care he was given during this difficult period I have decided to compete in the Lake Zurich Marathon swim in August 2010 for the Guys and St Thomas' Evelina Appeal, specifically the Tiny Lives campaign. This appeal aims to raise money for the around the clock care, state of the art high tech equipment, and the expansion required in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit to give every baby the very best chance of survival. To read more infomation about this appeal please click here.

The solo open water swim I will be undertaking will be along the length of Lake Zurich and totals 26.4 km (16.5 miles), this is the equivalent of swimming 1,200 lengths of a standard 25m swimming pool. I hope to do this in around 9 hours.

Please dig deep for this great charity and pass this link onto as many of your friends and family as you can to help me meet my target sponsorship figure.

A lot of you know that I quite regularly compete in endurance events and don't usually get out the collection tin but this challenge will probably be my toughest yet and undoubtedly means the most to me due to the charity I will be supporting.

 

£1000 could purchase special gifts for children staying in hospital over Christmas

£2000 could help pay for baby ‘nests’ to keep 20 premature babies comfortable in their cots 

£3000 could support our performing arts programme to give young patients the chance to relax and be entertained

£4000 could provide a mobile sensory unit to stimulate, develop and provide re-adjustment for children who have come from surgery, who have special needs or who are bed bound.

£5,500 could purchase a CPAP macine to inflate young patients lungs

£6000 could go towards the cost of a special care incubator

 

Paul.