So. How is MY Leukaemia doing these days ?

Well I am glad to report that so far it is behaving itself ! :-). August 15th  this year marks 11 years since my CLL diagnosis at Grantham Hospital during what i had believed to be a "routine" appointment!!

In the last 11 years I have gone from blood tests and prods every 3 moths to blood tests and check-ups every 12 months. As an added bonus I am now under the excellent care of Mr Tim Moorby,of the resident Haematology Consultants at the hospital I have worked at now for almost 21 years....so getting to my appointments is a relatively straight forward affair :-).

In the old days a decade or so ago I had to make my way to Grantham to see a random consultant {never quite sure who I would be seen by!) and the blood results would take between 7 to 10 days before they arrived at my GP surgery.....awaiting the results was a very stressful situation believe me !

So. I will be 51 in May, diagnosed in 2006 aged 40....now 11 years on...hopefully this little resume will give a bit of encouragement to anyone who is newly diagnosed.....i wish i could have read something like this early on in my journey because fear (and insomnia) had to be the worst aspects in the early years.

As my good friend (Sadly now departed ) Geoff Brocklebank told me in the dark weeks after my shock discovery..." You are more likely to die with CLL than from it".....that simple sentence was like an epiphany to me...and gave me the strength and drive to get my head in order...and to get involved in things such as this Blog. Thanks Geoff....you are sadly missed my friend, but you gave me the inspiration to get off my sorry ass and do something useful with my (new, post CLL) life  :-)

Until next time.

Andy

My Leukaemia story has been published on the LLR Website :-)

Hi Folks.Hope you are all well and 2013 is being good to you so far!.

Just a quick heads up that a story that I submitted to the Leukaemia and Lymphoma Research website has, much to my surprise!, been published :-0 !! lol.

If you haven't already seen it, here is the link:

http://leukaemialymphomaresearch.org.uk/people-personal-stories/patient-stories/andy-ward%E2%80%99s-story

Please tell me what you think. I appreciate the feedback :-)

Cheers.Andy

Scirocco 2 Morocco make an appearance in April's Top Gear Magazine !

Hoorraaahhhh!......At last, after many failed attempts at getting a mention in a national motoring magazine we have succeeded :-).

My co-pilot Glen sent me a text on Friday night saying that he had been made aware of a picture of us and the Scirocco which has been published in the most recent edition (April) of the Top Gear Magazine.Apparently he had emailed them a few snaps some time back, and against all the odds they decided to publish one.

Ok, so it is only a small picture on page 12, but the fact is that we can now honestly tell people that we have appeared in Top Gear......it's nice to be able to tell them we have appeared ON Top Gear but hey, you never know,perhaps one day we might even manage that.....well after Misters Clarkson,Hammond and May grow tired of driving supercars and decide to turn their attention to much more interesting stuff :-)......this may be of course be a long way off in the future !

.

College helping to fight leukaemia

Kind-hearted staff and students from West Nottinghamshire College visited King’s Mill Hospital on Thursday (25th June) at a registration session to join The Anthony Nolan Trust’s bone marrow register.

This is the story that was run in The West Nottinghamshire College magazine relating to the students who attended the Bone Marrow Donor Clinic at my Hospital in June 2009.

To see the full article, please click HERE to go to the College Website.

Who's the handsome chap in the blue shirt I wonder ? :-)

My name is Andy Ward :-)

Not sure why I posted this.May be something to do with the fact that I did what most people do at some time whilst surfing the net, and typed in my own name....my name appeared quite a long way down the list, so I just wondered if naming this blog entry "My name is Andy Ward" , would push me up the ratings list :-). How conceited is that ....lol !

Anyway, my name is Andrew Ward,I am 43 years (old?) and my home town is a village/town called Mansfield Woodhouse in Nottinghamshire. Just thought i would tell you that also....:-).

Andy

Meet the team. Andy Ward

Hi there.My names Andy Ward (the one without the dummy !),I'm 41 years old (young ?) and I am the guy who got us all into this mad quest !.

I suppose it's only fair that I give you a quick rundown of my background as I am expecting complete strangers to help our team out on our adventure next September so here goes:

I am currently ,like Glen and Gary, also employed within the NHS but i work for the Kings Mill Hospital as a medical Technical Officer (I repair the machines that "go ping" in hospitals as was featured in a sketch by the Monty Pythons team many years ago !).Before I was employed by the NHS I served for 12 years with the RAF as an Airframes Technician working at several stations including RAF Cranwell,RAF Lyneham,RAF Honington and finally RAF Lossiemouth in the deepest darkest highlands of Scotland.I services and maintained a wide veriety of aeroplanes such Jet provosts,Hercules and Tornado GR1's.

I have been married to my wonderful wife Teresa for 20 years (in July) and we have been blessed with 3 children, Rachel,Lauren and Andrew Jr.

My interests include Ebay,Online games,Messing with my car (yes it's a Scirocco and I have owned 4!) and giving up some spare time (if i can find any these days !) to help out at the Cranwell Aviation Heritage Centre at Rauceby were I maintain their static displayed Jet Provost Tmk4 and other exhibits.

Why am I doing the challenge ? Well in August 2006 I was unfortunate enough to be diagnosed with Chronic Leukaemia, and after a few months in "the wilderness" i got my head back together and decided to turn my efforts to trying to raise money for Leukaemia Research, which is how I ended up together with Teresa, undertaking Roc Around the Clock in August 2007, and at the end of that event we started to think "bigger"....and after a few months of consideration and debate Scirocco 2 Morocco was born and named as such due to the the fact that Morocco just happens to rhyme nicely with Scirocco :-)

I am really glad that we are doing this challenge, and that i will have the company of a very good friend of mine for what i believe will be a memorable trip, and that not just one, but 3 charities are hopefully going to benefit from our efforts.

My fundraising page is at: www.justgiving.com/scirocco2morocco .

Bought a camera...i love Ebay !

I bought a video camera for the trip on Tuesday, a Panasonic Full sized S-VHS (on the shoilder job !) that uses your standard full size VHS video cassettes.It comes complete with charger,all leads,battery and carry case, all in full working order and for the pricely sum of...wait for it.....£14.99 :-).
Ok, so its about 19 years old, but that still makes it 2 years younger than the car, and a LOT younger than me and i work ok..well most of the time (my boss says i sometimes don't work at all !...what can he mean ?).
The reason for buying such an antique peice of video history ? Well someone on another Blog (realbuzz.com i think) suggested (after i winged that people doing documentries always get more help cos they have a camera crew) that we invest in a camera, not just any camera, but one that looks like a "proffessional" one (is it 2 ff's or 2 ss's...oh well i'll use both !), so that we can appear (to the unannitiated) to be making a documentry during the drive, and thus gain the trust/help of the locals if we need any "favours"....crafty eh ?.....and of course we will be using it to film our progress also !.
Is that the time...damn, that's lunch finished...better get back :-).