Jane & Faisal are cycling the Argus - a mad cycle race around Table Mountain in Cape Town.  It is a 109km hilly route, likely to be hot and windy and a mere 35,000 other nutters will be doing it.  To make matters worse, we are doing this on a racing tandem - Faisal in the front, and Jane will be at the back, looking at his backside for hours!!  We are hoping that by doing this mad event we will also raise funds for our local children's cancer ward at St Georges.  One of the children at our local club, a 3 year old little boy, is currently being treated there.  The passage below is written by his mother.

 "It is called Clear Cell Sarcoma of the Kidney (CCSK) and affects probably only about 20 children worldwide a year.  He received surgery to remove the kidney and this was followed by 8 months of chemotherapy.  During this time he was in and out of hospital. Whilst he received all of his chemotherapy at The Royal Marsden Hospital in Sutton, he was sent to St George’s Hospital (our local in Tooting), every time he was ill and needed urgent medical attention, which was quite often.  Whilst the staff at St George’s were always absolutely amazing, the facilities were pretty rotten.  Christian always stayed on The Pinkney Ward – there were often no curtains on the windows and if there were, they were falling down and covered in dirt, there was no high chair in which to feed him, there was often no cot available for him to sleep in so we had to use the buggy until one became available, the playroom had very few toys and the few toys that were there were either broken or incomplete, the sofa beds for parents (again when available) were old, dirty and often broken, the treatment room was in a complete mess, and the medical equipment was often faulty or broken.  Both Pete and myself had already discussed raising some money to help children like Christian, and we decided that we would do it for the Pinkney Ward.  Last year Pete managed to raise a huge amount (I think it was about £60,000 – but again Sean can confirm that) but it became clear to us that all of the children’s wards at St Georges could benefit greatly from some funds.Last month we found out Christian’s cancer had spread to his bones.  He has just started a much more intensive round of chemo at The Royal Marsden, Sutton, and again his shared care hospital will be St George’s.  Already in the last four weeks Christian has had to endure on average one operation a week under a general anaesthetic but he is being incredibly strong and still smiling.  The odds are pretty much stacked against us this time, but we are not giving up hope.  Please help to raise as much money as possible to help make Christian’s numerous stays, and other children like him, at St George’s as comfortable as possible.If you want to read up on Christian’s progress then you can always have a look at www.theblandfords.com as Pete updates this regularly. Plus you can also have a look back at what he went through last year."

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