Marc Craddock
Running for Joe
Fundraising for Great Ormond Street Hospital Children's Charity
Story
Below is a very brief story of why I'm running the London Marathon and raising money for Great Ormond Street Hospital - please donate and help me raise money for this great cause.
"My son Joe was born 11 weeks premature and because of this, had a brain haemorrhage.
The haemorrhage caused a blood clot, which then led to the development of a condition called hydrocephalus – a build up of fluid inside the skull that leads to brain swelling. Joe was admitted to Great Ormond Street Hospital after becoming very ill with signs of severe intracranial pressure such as eye rolling, vomiting and lots of crying. The doctors at GOSH fitted a shunt to drain fluid from his brain to his stomach.
As parents we were helpless and of course fearful of our tiny premature baby having brain surgery with many risks involved. Thankfully Joe responded well and was discharged a few days later after successful treatment.
Five years later, Joe became sick once more and again was admitted to GOSH. This time he spent one month on the ward and went through many operations to remove, what had become an infected shunt, and replace it with a new one. Sounds simple enough, but carrying your 5 year old son down to an operating theatre to be anaesthetised for a brain operation 4-5 times in a month is extremely difficult to deal with when you know you can do nothing but sit and hope he comes back up to his bed!
Thankfully he is well once again and causing us all the same hassles of any 8 1/2 year old boy at school!! He has many mates, loves cars, Formula 1, Xbox and his dog Monty. We have a lot to thank the doctors at GOSH for."
And of course, we're the lucky ones, there are 1000's of kids at GOSH that are going through tough life threatening times. All donations go towards saving them!
Please click on the links here for more info and to see Joe in the GOSH advert:
www.gosh.org/gen/meet-some-of-our-patients/joe/
www.youtube.com/watch?v=eV5U7E6KZh8
Plus a nice link for my sponsor - www.fischer-futureheat.co.uk