Pete and Steve's Excellent Adventure

Peter Morrison is raising money for Whittington Health Charity

Participants: Pete Morrison, Steve Crabb, Kerry Geldart, Joe Amodeo, Peter Blach, Dave Knight, Jon Head, Tom Sprange, John Strachan, Matt Gardner, Belinda Negus, Adam Dawson, Caroline Dawson

Story

Two events occurred in 2006 that changed our lives. Steve's twins were born 10 weeks prematurely and spent 2 months at Homerton Hospital neonatal unit. Pete's 4 year old son Finn was diagnosed with Acute Lymphoblastic Leukeamia and is currently being treated at Great Ormond Street hospital and The Whittington hospital on a shared care basis.

We want to give something back to the people that saved the twins lives and are working to save Finn's life. As we are both keen cyclists we have organised a charity cycle ride, the proceeds to be split between our chosen charities. We have already received fantastic support from our friends, many of whom have agreed to join us cycling the Coast to Coast route from Whitehaven to Sunderland on 13 June 2007.

Finn's Story...

On Friday 13th October last year our world was turned upside down when our little boy Finn was diagnosed with Leukeamia. Finn had developed a rash and several dark bruises over the preceding 5 days but otherwise seemed his normal bubbly self. A consultant led us to a quiet room where he told us the bad news. Finn's white blood cell count was extremely high. The most likely cause was Leukeamia. Two days later at Great Ormond Street Hospital for Children, the diagnosis was confirmed as T Cell Acute Lymphoblastic Leukeamia. This form of the disease affects around 10% of the 500 or so children who contract Leukeamia in the UK each year.

Finn was then put on a chemotherapy 'protocol', basically a medical project plan showing which cytotoxic drugs to give him so that he had the best chance of beating the disease. The protocol lasts for 3 and a half years, with the first year composed of monthly blocks of intensive chemo, usually administered in hospital 2-3 times a week. This is followed by 2 and a half years of maintenance chemotherapy. Over the coming weeks we all learned about the various drugs and what effect they had on Finn. Since most of the drugs are toxic, they have fairly brutal side affects, ranging from nausea and hair loss to wild mood swings.

We're now 6 months into Finn's treatment and to say it's been an emotional roller coaster is putting it mildly. However throughout, two things have amazed us.

Firstly is Finn's resilience and ability to cope with anything that the disease and doctors have thrown at him. Since being diagnosed, he's spent over 40 nights in hospital, been bed bound and unable to walk for 4 months and has had to take a host of nasty drugs and suffer a range of debilitating side affects. But if you've spent time with Finn you'll know that he's a very cheerful little boy and even at the worst of times a smile is never far away from his lips.

The second thing has been the dedication and quality of all the staff working for the NHS who we've dealt with over the last 6 months.

The quality of care Finn has received both in hospital and at home has been outstanding.

On a day to day basis, we have received a great deal of support and advice from the Paediatric department at The Whittington, who have been fantastic.

We'd like to donate 50% of the money raised from the sponsored Coast to Coast cycle to a trust fund that Wendy King (Finn's paediatric oncology nurse) has created at the Whittington. The trust fund was set up to provide better facilities for children with cancer who use the Paediatric unit at the Whittington and to improve the oncology training of the nursing staff there.

Click here to donate to Steve's charity 'Homerton Hospital Neonatal Unit'