As many of you will already know, my nephew Blake was hospitalised a few days after he was born with a major heart problem. At the age of 5 months months he had to undergo major open heart surgery. Against all the odds, and thanks to the excellent work of the Leeds Children's Heart Unit, Blake recovered and is now a lovely, bubbly 4-year old!

The surgeon who operated on Blake commented at the time that had this happened 5 years ago Blake would not have survived as the available equipment, advances in surgical techniques and research has significantly imporved in recent years. These advances have been (and continue to be) hugely assisted by funds raised by the Leeds Children's Heart Surgery Fund.

The Cairns family as a whole will be forever grateful to the Leeds Children's Heart Unit and the Heart Surgery Fund and we wanted to take the opportunity of the London Marathon to express this gratitude in financial terms to enable other children to have the life that Blake now has.

Please do give generously. This will be my first and only marathon!

Paul

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