Sarah Parker and Dominic Goold will be running the London Marathon on 13th April 2014 for their respective charities. Please read their stories and help support their good causes.
Sarah Parker, Research Nurse here at the BRU will be running her first ever marathon in April to help support and raise money for development of the maternity unit at Leicester General Hospital.
In Sarah’s words
After looking at the work intranet I saw an advert for London Marathon for this year. My colleague Michelle Bourne said you should enquire! Therefore I forwarded my email and awaited a reply. The reply came with an offer of a place. There was now no going back. Alongside the offer, came the charity fund for which they wanted me to raise money for. I read about it and I instantly knew that this was going to be a worth while life achievement.
At the Leicester General Hospital 1-2 babies per week are born stillborn and these parents have to stay in close vicinity to healthy new born babies. The plan is to build a suite with dedicated rooms for these parents which will make a fundamental difference to their experience. Mothers whose babies have died need to be cared for away from the noise of babies crying and other intrusions. The facilities will include an en-suite wet room and a separate area for the baby. The proposed suite will have a courtyard garden and is far enough away from the main delivery area to eliminate any chance of a bereaved mother seeing or hearing a newborn baby.
The words of both mother and midwife have left an impact on me to how much this facility is needed.
“When you bury your baby, you don’t just bury their future, you bury with them your dreams, your own plans and your own future. You make as many memories in those few days as you can, as you know they will have to last your entire lifetime.”
“It can be very difficult to give the care and support you want to. Often I think the importance of the precious few hours the parents have with their baby is lost when the ward is so busy and short staffed. I need to have enough time to explain properly what the parents’ choices are. I don’t want to be rushed or to compromise the care I give. The memories I am helping to provide are priceless and have to last a lifetime. There will be no Christmases or birthdays or first day at school for these parents. All they have is now.”
Please make a donation www.justgiving.com/saraheparker37
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Dominic is a fifth year medical student and is spending this year undertaking research at the respiratory BRU.
In Dominic's words:
During my clinical rotations I spent time at the Glenfield clinical decisions unit and the paediatric high dependency unit where I saw adults and children suffering from asthma attacks. I saw how distressing this was to patients and families and for some people with severe asthma this is a regular occurrence. The research I am doing hopefully will make a small contribution to finding new treatments for severe asthma but more research needs to be done and this requires more funding. This is why I am running the London marathon for Asthma UK and with your help I hope to raise as much as possible for them.
Charity: Asthma UK
Target: £1700
Donation page: http://uk.virginmoneygiving.com/DominicGoold
