Thanks for taking the time to visit my JustGiving page.

 

In October 2004My sister in law and one of my best friends Sian was diagnosed with Ovarian cancer.  She was not given a great prognosis but battled on for 4 years before she finally lost her battle in November 2008.  Despite all the pain and suffering she was going through Sian put up an immense fight .  She was always smiling and cheerful and remained positive throughout, she was without doubt a real inspiration. 

 

Throughout her illness Sian received excellent care from Velindre hospital in Cardiff.  She attended reguular chemo sessions there which we turned into great social occasions.  I was tasked with buying the Marks and Spencers sandwiches and cakes and we would while away the hours eating well, catching up on gossip and reading OK magazine.  The nurses and doctors at Velindre were fantastic and I know that throughout her illness Sian had a tremendous amount of repect for the work that they all did. 

 

They are now trying to raise enough money to fund a further 4 nurse specialists at the hospital and I would like to help with that.

 

When Sian was well enough she would drag me along to the gym for a spot of exercise and swimming and of course the obligatory lunch afterwards!  We tried lots of different exercise classes - line dancing; stability balls; step and pilates which usually ended up with Sian and I collapsed in a heap of giggles as we struggled to co-ordinate ourselves, however we always finished each trip to the gym with a swim.  Now for those of you who know me well you will know that I am not one of life's natural swimmers, I hate getting water in my face!! - but Sian would always keep pushing and pushing me until I could swim 20 lengths.  So in memory of Sian and to help raise money towards the 4 nurse specialists I have decided to swim " The English Channel". 

 

Now before you fall of your chair laughing I am not going to swim the actual channel, but the equivalent of it which is 22 miles and I am not going to swim it all in one go!!  However during the period 1st September to 1st December I am going to swim 22 miles of my local swimming pool which is 1416 lengths - a few more than the 20 I know I can do and for those of you who haven't worked it out yet it equates to 118 lengths per week.

 

So if you have a bit of spare cash and  feel like donating to this really worthwhile charity please do so and feel free to forward this page to anyone you think may be interested , thanks for reading and look out for the regular updates I will give as to my weekly progress.

 

A massive thank you to Cath Lloyd my best friend from school days who has joined me on this journey.  Cath used to live around the corner from where I currently live and we met on our first day of school and have been great friends ever since.  She moved to Connecituct USA several years ago and sadly earlier this year her mum Daphne also passed away after suffering from bowel cancer.  Cath has decided to combine forces with me to help  raise the funds and she is swimming the same distance but back in the States - except for the week of the 5th September when she is back in the UK and we are swimming together .   I am really grateful for the support that Cath has given me and the charity and hope that you will support Cath as well on this challenge. 

 

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