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In January 2006 my beautiful niece, Katie Currie, was diagnosed with Leukaemia.  After a long battle and search for a donor I am pleased to say a perfect match was found for Katie and she is now into her 3 year of recovery. She can still suffer from the effects of her intensive treatment but otherwise she is doing great

Unfortunately, the same cannot be said for her good friend Vanessa Riddle, an Ayrshire girl, who at around about  the same time was going through treatment for Stage 4 (High-Risk) Neuroblastoma, a very rare, aggressive and difficult to treat form of childhood cancer that only affects 100 kids in the UK every year.  Recently, her parents received news that she had relapsed and there is now no treatment available through the NHS.  Her parents now have to look to the States for this treatment but it comes at a price; £500,000.

Vanessa was a phenomenal friend and source of support for Katie, helping Katie through some really dark times when they were in Yorkhill together.  Furthermore, both Vanessa's parent Connie and Chris became close friends of my brother and sister in law, Neil and Siobhan.  Understandably, when Neil and Siobhan heard the news they were devastated as was Katie.  However, if you see the clip below, you will see a young girl who is by no means feeling sorry for herself, in fact she is a remarkably mature and philosophical about it. "It got me.." she simply says as a matter of fact!

But like many others we wish to help get Vanessa that treatment. So on 3rd of March Graeme, Brian and myself intend to cycle round arran (approx 57 miles) along with a group of friends and supporters before the 3 of us take part in a Duathlon consisting of a 10k run 20K cycle on the Sunday.  

Please watch the clip, this is a cruel disease but we must help Vanessa fight it.  Every little helps, seriously!

http://news.stv.tv/scotland/west-central/293619-family-in-race-against-time-to-raise-500000-for-daughters-cancer-treatment/