This is my first blog for a long long time, but I feel that it is time to spread some love.
Today myself, Debbie and Steven were fortunate enough to be invited to an event that showed the beauty of humanity. The Snowdrop Appeal for Scarborough Hospital's Post Launch Afternoon in Helmsley.
The story behind the Snowdrop Appeal is that sadly some families go into the maternity unit with hopes and sadly leave with nothing because their child has been born sleeping. So an appeal was started to raise £120,000 to build a special suite for families that have had an incredibly tragic and traumatic experience.
Our fundraising group Wonkey McDonky Fundraising raised just under £1,000 for the appeal through a book stall, bucket collections at the Scarborough Open Air Theatre and one of our biggest fundraisers, the "Iron(ing) Man Challenge". This was a 12 hour male only ironing event in the entrance of the hospital on the hottest day of the year in 2014 in the smallest room of the building. Four brave people including The Scarborough Genie all got together to iron the biggest pile of laundry ever seen by the human race.
The Scarborough Genie suffered from skin poisoning after 10 hours of wearing his make-up and started speaking in tongues and it made the last two hours incredibly scary for the other three members of the team doing the event!!
The reason why we got involved in the event was a personal one for myself, Debbie and Steven.
On the 22nd May 1996, whilst the country was holding their heads in their hands as England got knocked out of the European Football thingy, Debbie fell ill as a 36 week pregnant mother to be. After calling a doctor who gave us some shady advice she managed to survive the night. However, two nights later Debbie fell ill again and we called the on-call doctor again. Thankfully, the doctor on call Dr Garnett was incredibly concerned by the situation that we found Debbie in and rushed her into hospital. We didn't know why at the time, maybe when she went into A&E and they tried to put a needle into her hand that she wouldn't stop bleeding.
Anyway, Debbie was admitted over the weekend, which was a bank holiday, and the hottest weekend I've ever known (I would like to add that we had my cousin and my best mate lodging with us at the time so we had to juggle 'manly' things and me being a concerned husband all at once).
On the Tuesday I received a call from Debbie saying that they were going to induce labour overnight. This was amazing news as I knew I was going to become a father the following day.
I was awoken at 5:30am by Debbie calling me to tell me that nothing had happened yet, but I should get my arse into gear and get to the hospital as soon as possible. However, I had to get my packed lunch made, get into town and get the TENS machine and get into work and fill in my holiday paperwork (this was before paternity breaks people).
I got to the hospital at 10:30am and was greeted by what can only be described as the girl from The Exorcist as I walked into the maternity suite. "WHERE THE HELL HAVE YOU BEEN?" I was gently asked. I explained that since 5:30am I hadn't stopped and got everything that was required for the day.
So after several examinations Deb was moved into the birthing suite (we wanted a water birth, but for a reason unknown to us at the time this was not feasible). There was three hours of screaming and pushing (this was mainly from me as my wrist was twisted around a stirrup post on the bed) and finally at 4:25pm we brought our lovely son Steven into the world.
It was only after the birth did we find out how seriously ill Debbie actually was. She had an incredibly rare condition called HELLPS syndrome. This is where the placenta and the liver start an epic battle against each other and this often ends with tragedy on the part of both the mother and child in birth.
We were incredibly lucky that we walked away as a family unit. Sadly however, another mother that very same week had also come in with HELLPS syndrome and had lost her child. This syndrome had not been seen since the mid 70s in Scarborough Hospital and yet there were two cases in one week.
I could not begin to comprehend how it would have been to walk away from the hospital not only without our new born child, but also potentially without my wife. Becoming a widower at 23 years old was just not worth thinking about.
I had, I will admit, hit a defensive mode and had thought "at least the mortgage will be paid off" and kind of hit the skids.
However, that aside with the generosity of the wonderful people who have done walks, bike rides, coffee mornings, bungee jumps et al for the cause raised the money needed to bring this wonderful suite to the hospital.
I feel that a massive shout out should be given to Annika Dowson who through her dedication to the cause through the sad passing of her daughter Gypsy took it upon herself to dedicate so much of her life to raise funds for the appeal. Herself and her lovely husband James were given the "Points of Light" award by David Cameron for her hard work. We duly doff our cap in your general direction x
I just hope that the suite never has to be used but sadly I feel that it will be and for everyone who has to use it I will shed a tear xx