Posted 27th May 2010 Update from Leon Daniels

I am able to give you the very latest update on Alice's news.

As of today we are at Day 70 since her bone marrow transplant. Apart from a few days in hospital with an infection, she has been home almost continuously since Easter. She has no signs of rejection, is getting stronger each day, and has a quite genuine positive blood count derived from her new immune system.

About three weeks earlier than planned she is now being weaned off the anti-rejection drugs - this will boost her immune system but at the same time raises the risk of graft vs host disease. This is a positive sign as she is clearly well enough to take this step and cope with the consequences.

At this rate, at some point in August, her immune system will be well enough developed for her to be exposed to more normal risks - shops, school, restaurants, hotels and public transport and this will end her period of enforced isolation. She will still need to be careful as full immunity might take up to two years. However a gentle return to normality looks entirely possible over the next few weeks and months.

It would be wrong to suggest we are 'out of the woods' as there remain many risks. However she is responding brilliantly to the treatment - she is in incredibly high spirits and full of optimism buoyed along by great encouragement from all our friends and colleagues. Thank you all so much for this.

 

Posted 30 March 2010

Whilst we were all about to celebrate New Year, many of us in First were shocked when we received a truly heart-breaking message from Leon Daniels, the UK Bus Division's Customer Service and Communications Director. What this told us was that Leon's wife Alice, mother to their two young boys, had been diagnosed with Acute Lymphoblastic Leukaemia.

As many of you know Alice has been undergoing intensive treatment over the last three months whilst remaining incredibly positive.

Subsequently, we came up with a plan to put together a team from within FirstGroup to run the Bristol 10k on 9th May in Alice and Leon's honour and raise as much money as possible for a charity of their choice. Immediately we had twelve volunteers from across UK Bus who were willing to join the team.

Collectively we are running 120k or about 73 miles to raise funds for Leukaemia and Lymphoma Research (www.lrf.org.uk). Alice and Leon have chosen this incredible charity due to its focus on finding cures and its entire reliance on voluntary efforts.

The twelve of us running for this good cause are:

Karen Baxter – Public Relations Manager
Glenn Bladon – Group IT Director
Ant Bullivant - Marketing Manager
Justin Davies – Managing Director, Bristol, Somerset & Avon
Adrian Jones – Managing Director, London & Berkshire
Michael Davies – Financial Controller, First Rail Support
Duncan McGraw – Public Relations Manager
Richard Millward – Commercial Finance Director UK Bus
Simon Newport – Commercial Director, Devon & Cornwall
Marc Reddy – Managing Director, Devon, Cornwall, Hampshire and Dorset
Nicola Shaw - Director – Bus UK Ireland and Germany
Nick Vane – Development Director UK Bus

Please dig deep and help us raise as much money as possible for this charity. Leon regularly reminds us that he has never seen a happy jogger so we will all try and complete this with a smile on our faces even though some of us have never run anywhere near this distance before in our lives!

Thanks for your support.