Now January is nearly over! Where has it gone?
Mad Dog and I passed our Kennel Club Silver Award last week...yey!! She was as good as gold. I think I had the right dog?! Today we had our first training lesson towards the Gold Award. "Now you are Gold" advised Ann Cook our trainer, "The dogs are trained off the lead"!! Yeah, right...lol
Mad Dog VERY happy with this decision. Mad Dog decided she rather liked Gold training! Mad Dog set all the other dogs off and played chase and hide and seek around the training centre. And me? Sorry, I just stand there and laugh.... Bad Mad Dog! Bad Mad Owner!
I have been enjoying a month that I lost being in hospital last year.
I was Chief Timekeeper for the Surrey Cross Country Championships, which was a real challenge and great fun. Helped of course, by the support of two exceedingly good timekeepers with two very brand new ones.
Then I was at Lee Valley as Timekeeper Steward, which is all administrative work and knowing how to keep your cool and react quickly to unplanned situations. I like this sometime more than timekeeping!
This coming weekend I will be timekeeping for the London Games held again at Lee Valley (north London). This will be my first track event since September, so I'm a little nervous - but will be fun!
Last weekend was the British Liver Trust (BLT) Conference held at Walton House near Stratford Upon Avon. A very beautiful setting and it was great to meet some ex-LISTEN committee members, one whom I'd never met, and one who I haven't seen for quite a while. BLT had raised funds to cover the costs of our accommodation and dinner, and a few of the topics were quite controversial.
The NHS want organ donation to be transparent. Apparently it currently isn't. So in doing this they are investigating and discussing a National Transplant list as opposed to the current Unit List. The exception to the rule is the Super Urgent List which is already National but only the top 3 cases are allowed and usually with 48 hours to live. This was the list I was put on.
The major flaw that I see in this new National List for all liver transplants, is that due to the total lack of donors and of course people not signing up for the Donor Organ List, the organs that do become available will go to maybe not quite the sickest but those who will have the best chance of a long life. What's the problem here I bet you ask? Well, personally, and I have been given confirmation of this, it will mean that because of the lack of organs, there will be no re-transplants. A computer will hold all the information and will allocate the organ to the next on the list. No chance for re transplants because whilst you may get another 10+ years of life, on average this will not be so. The other issue is getting the recipient of the organ to the organ (or vice versa) which rather than local London and south, could mean transporting from Scottish islands, NW England etc, where a shorter distance to travel (ie going to your local transplant unit) would mean the organ would have a much better chance of "taking" as the period from harvesting to transplant is tight.
Enough! I'm really on my high horse about this right now and could go on for ever....I won't!!
Running. Have been doing quite a bit but 3 runs in a week equals needing sleep for a week. I am considering deferring my Marathon place until 2012 if that is a possibility. My running pal is in agreement for us both.
Tomorrow is a busy day. Thursday.
I have had a plaque made to take to King's tomorrow:
Todd Ward Relative's Room
Partly funded by
LISTEN At King's
January 2011
So tomorrow is the grand opening of the said ward room which LISTEN donated around £3,000, with the same amount again raised by a gentleman called Wayne Bowden. He is currently training to cycle from London to Brighton and hopes to compete in the Transplant Games which this year will be in Northern Ireland.
SO tomorrow. Group Support will start at 12.45 with a talk by the pharmacy about new drugs available, then the opening, then time for my bloods.
Happy bloods tomorrow please!
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