Over the August Bank Holiday weekend I will be walking from the Ellenor Lions Hospice at Northfleet to Dover Castle - a total distance of around seventy miles.
I will be walking cross country via the North Downs Way, something I have wanted to do for many years.
Why am I doing it?
Apart from fulfilling a personal ambition, I am trying to raise at least £ 500 for Chyps childrens hospice services.
ChYps provides palliative care to around a hundred children and young people with life shortening illnesses throughout North and West Kent and the London Borough of Bexley.
Please have a look at their video to get an idea of the much needed services they currently provide .....
and here is another video from one of the families they have helped....
If you would like to sponsor me and help the work of Chyps, please visit my Virgin Money Giving page now.
Every pound you can spare will make a difference.
A donation of £ 25 will enable ChYps to maintain their 24/7 telephone advice line.
A donation of £ 35 will allow ChYps to provide chemotherapy to a child in their own home.
After each day of the walk I hope to post an update on this blog and, provided my technology (a.k.a my Ipad) doesn't let me down, I will be tweeting regularly too as I go.
Thanks for your support.
Posts
Excellent post! I'm an American physician and an avid supporter of hospice/palliative care. I think the negative connotations stem from a basic lack of acceptance among the general public and, unfortunately, some health care professionals, that death is an inevitable part of life. In my experience (and I have had personal experience with hospice when my mother-in-law was dying last summer), there seems to be too much emphasis on quantity of life, as opposed to quality of life. People don't realize how awful it is to die in an intensive care unit, confined to a bed and hooked up to a ventilator, and very much alone. Hospice/palliative care provides a valuable and often under-rated service: death with comfort, companionship, and dignity.
ReplyDeleteRead more at http://www.blogcatalog.com/discuss/entry/hospice-what-does-this-word-mean-to-you#46sf8g95mdecTdUl.99