Like the last post, it's been a while. I last blogged in September after I'd finished my course. I found out in December I passed so that was a great relief, and makes it worthwhile to have kept on when at times I wanted to give up. I have been busy working Monday to Friday since then. A return to full-time work since I went on maternity leave with Isla in August 2008. I have worked a few days each month since January 2011 when Isla finished treatment, but my focus was Isla, and I enjoyed spending my days with her, selfishly. Financially, it was extremely tough, but worth it. Ross is now on terminal leave from the RAF, and is a part-time student, so it's a role reversal in our house at the moment with him at home most days. I am absolutely loving the work I'm doing at the minute, and I can see my attitude has changed due to what we've been through.
We're at an 'interesting' point in our lives where Ross will soon be looking for a new job, and we'll be looking for a new house. I don't know where we'll end up, but I do enjoy living where we are just now, whatever will be, will be!
When I last blogged, there was a number of fundraising events going on for Isla's appeal. These are all now finished. We're leaving Isla's online donation page open, incase we need to start fundraising again, but not encouraging anymore fundraising for her at this present time. Isla remains very well, infact better than we had been led to believe all last year. Just over a year ago, we were told that they weren't happy with the state of Isla's liver, and if there was no improvement in a year, they would order more tests to assess her. During the scans throughout the year, when I'd asked how her liver was I was always told 'stable' or the same. When Isla had her liver review in December we were told that Isla's liver was healing nicely and that she had been left with scarring but that her liver was working normally around the scarring. While we were delighted with the news, I was also upset that we'd been led to believe all year that her liver was not repairing! Never mind, it's good news. Isla has now been off treatment two years, and doing amazingly well. There's not a day goes by where I don't count my blessings at how lucky we are to still have her with us. Last week, we registered her for the local primary school, that is going to be an emotional day in August!
So, with fundraising for Isla now on the backburner, we decided we needed to focus on something else. We knew we wanted to do the Kiltwalk again this year, it was such a well organised and supported event last year, and so accessible being on our doorstep, we planned to do it again this year. When the events for this year were announced in the Sunday Post last year, Ross daftly suggested that he'd like to do three of them, and being as daft as him, I thought 'why the heck not?!' When we decided to do the Kiltwalk last year, it was all a bit last minute, and we liked the idea of organising a team to support a charity, but knew we didn't have time to organise that. So this year, we knew which charity we wanted to do it for. My brother also mentioned that he wanted to do the Hampden one, so when I asked if he was willing to do it for the charity we chose, he was happy to do that too.
The Kiltwalk is all about raising money for Scotland's children, with the partner charities focussing on such. We both decided that we wanted to support Logan's Fund, a charity close to our hearts that we will always support. Logan's Fund was set up during 2009 to raise money to take Logan Main abroad for treatment for Neuroblastoma. Sadly Logan lost his battle in June 2009. With the remaining fund, his brave parents Chris and Angela decided to keep going with Logan's fund in support of Neuroblastoma and other childhood cancer's in Scotland. When we decided to fundraise to take Isla to Disneyland Paris at the end of her hospital treatment in July 2010, Logan's Fund came forward to offer us £3000 towards the cost, for this we will always be grateful. It is not only for supporting Isla that we will be grateful, it is for having the courage to keep fundraising in Logan's name and supporting other families in similar positions, in particular Olivia's family, it must be incredibly difficult to do. www.logansfund.org
In honour of Logan, his family and all those families who have been through childhood cancer, we are undertaking three Kiltwalks for Logan's Fund, with 50% of our fundraising benefiting this charity. The remaining 50% is split between the Kiltwalk's partner charities. We are inviting people to come and join our team for each one, so far we have 7 people for the Hampden Kiltwalk, 4 for Edinburgh and lots of interest for Speyside.
I have thought often about changing the name of this blog, as the 'slim' part never seems to be happening, but it is a goal that I hope to achieve at some point, so I will leave it as it is. I had given up on the gym during last summer when I was trying to get on with my coursework, but I'm back at it. Training in the gym is where I'll stay until the weather warms up a bit, I really can't stand the cold when exercising! With training underway I'll leave the blog at that just now, and if you're feeling generous, this is where you can donate
http://uk.virginmoneygiving.com/simpsons4logan
