Our team:  myself, Cathrine Austad, Carrie Connor, Catherine Monteiro de Barros, Elizabeth Larsen, Sophie de Limburg-Stirum Banon, Emmanuelle Lepic, Patty Grunenbaum and Georgina Macpherson.

Dear All

As you know, I am very involved with the UK blood cancer charity, Bloodwise, consistently trying to help them fundraise.  My drive comes primarily from a personal contact with blood cancers over the past 15 years and more recently, with the devastating and very sudden loss of my elder brother to Acute Myeloid Leukaemia, and my mother to Multiple Myeloma only a year earlier.

A group of wonderful women and I are embarking on a cycle trip in the stunning historical countryside of Transylvania in a couple of weeks time. There won’t be a huge challenge to it (I think :o!) other than avoiding too sore a bum!!! But being in Dracula-land seemed to us a link too amusing and coincidental to miss.

In our group, both Elizabeth and Patty have also had siblings succumb to dreadful cancers. So, this collective drive brought us to a fundraising opportunity which I hope you don’t mind us sharing.

The mission is to take away from Dracula’s need for healthy blood! The objective being to cover north of 160kms in 4 days thereby also hopefully raising continually needed funds for Bloodwise’s tireless fight to stop blood cancers. And to help Bloodwise’s mission to develop new research thereby getting or preserving healthy blood for all those children, women and men who are randomly struck by these terrible illnesses.

Mariella and Team Transylvania

A few facts:

• The 3rd biggest cancer killer
• The 5th most common cancer
• 40,000 get blood cancers every year
• 35,000 die every year
• 250,000 living with it.