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May 30, 2008
Support Adrian's petition
Following on from my previous entry about Adrian Sudbury's brave story I would like to update you on his crusade to fufil a dying wish.
He recently had a high profile audience with the Prime Minister, where he explained that he is spending his final weeks raising awareness about bone marrow donation in colleges/sixth forms and universities.
Adrian wants information about bone marrow donation to be a formal part of either the curriculum or the pastoral care programme.
As a result of this meeting there is now an on-line petition to support Adrian on the Downing Street website. This is the best way of ensuring the government acts.
You can do so by clicking on this link http://petitions.pm.gov.uk/bone-marrow. The deadline to sign is July 23.
Adrian is an inspirational person whose dedication shows no boundaries and I would urge anyone reading this to seriously consider supporting his petition.
Posted by aseal at 9:02 AM | Comments (0)
May 23, 2008
'A story I must tell'
There are a number of things I could write about today but they seem very unimportant in comparison to the story of Adrian Sudbury.
I don't know Adrian personally but have read his blogs and been aware of his fight against a terrible illness.
It's a story I feel the Gazette as a paper must tell.
Adrian is a fellow journalist who works for another newspaper within our group in Huddersfield. He is a young ambitious reporter and should have the world at his feet, but within weeks he will probably be dead.
He has leukaemia and his treatment has failed. Rather than sit and dwell on these facts he has decided to use the time he has left to try and get each and everyone of us to become bone marrow donors so another family don't have to go through what his is.
Read Adrian's words and then honour his life by adding your name to the list of donors.
I'm 26 years old and will be dead in a matter of months.
I will die from the leukaemia I have been battling for nearly a year and a half.
There is only one thing left for me to try and achieve.
My dying wish is that everyone reading this will think again about bone marrow donation.
In around 75 per cent of cases the procedure is not too dissimilar from giving blood.
If more people knew that then the 7,000 children and adults, who are still waiting for a transplant, might have a chance of surviving.
As it stands they will die.
Everyone of you reading this has the unique opportunity to save another human being's life – or at least give them the chance that I had.
Please have a look at my blog http://baldyblog.freshblogs.co.uk/2008/05/a_plea_for_more_bone_marrow_do.html#more and the videos showing you what it is like to be a donor.
If it wasn't for the kindness and generosity of a 30-year-old woman in Germany I would have died well over a year ago.
I suppose it's always nice to be a world first but I was diagnosed with two types of leukaemia in December 2006 – a specific combination the doctors had never seen before.
Up until then I was a fit and healthy 25-year-old working for the Huddersfield Examiner.
I played football – not particularly well – did boxing training, was a good runner, ate sensibly and didn't smoke.
Then for some months I noticed that I was getting regular chest infections and couldn't shift them.
Progressively I started to deteriorate.
I became increasingly pale and then this chronic fatigue set in. The levels of exhaustion were extreme so much so that I needed to lie down half way through washing the pots.
Naturally I went to see the GP only to be told I had a virus.
His advice: "Go home, rest, and have a warm drink of honey and lemon."
Although this beverage was tasty it did little to alleviate my symptoms.
The next day I drove myself into Sheffield's A&E and basically didn't leave.
The doctors there realised that something was seriously wrong and referred me up to the specialist haematology ward.
It was quite a scary experience.
I could see all these "bald-chemo heads" and emaciated figures. The medical teams were talking about taking a bone marrow sample and I knew from that point that leukaemia was the most likely outcome.
When the diagnosis was finally made it was heartbreaking for me to see my family.
This is something I write about happening to other people – or read in the papers – not something that would ever happen to me.
My girlfriend Poppy, my parents and sister, all met with the top consultant who explained my diagnosis and the treatment that would follow.
I remember asking: "How long would I have lived if I hadn't driven myself into hospital?"
He replied: "Maybe another fortnight – it's hard to tell."
I suppose there was no other choice but to crack on with treatment.
The doctors were treating me for Acute Myeloid Leukaemia. The first line in the fight against this disease are several cycles of chemotherapy.
For some cancers you can come in, receive your chemo, then go home.
Leukaemia and other blood cancers are more challenging.
The cancer is in your bone marrow; the tissue responsible for making red blood cells and white blood cells.
White blood cells form the foundation of your immune system.
When the chemo destroys these cells you have to stay on the ward until your immune system regenerates. This can take up to three weeks.
During this time you are either incredibly bored or incredibly ill.
The chemo itself was awful and I reacted very badly. It often caused me to be sick, it made my mouth and insides burn and left me with a disgusting metallic taste.
It was around this time that I decided I wanted to write about my experiences.
Just so you know I generally loathe blogs. It seems like if anyone gets ill these days they have to share it with the world.
I decided that if I was going to write this blog it would have to be something a bit different and make full use of the multimedia facilities we now have at our disposal.
Although it looked as though we were making progress tests showed that the leukaemia was still there and the only option then was to have a bone marrow transplant.
Thankfully, as I mentioned before, there was a match for me in Germany. I still can't express adequately how grateful I am for this incredible act of altruism. There are strict anonymity rules governing donation but I would have loved dearly to have met her.
The transplant itself is easy – it's just a half hour infusion of cells.
It's the five weeks in a special isolation room that's the nightmare.
Of course I tried to stay positive but I hated my experiences in there.
You are only allowed three visitors and you are constantly tired, feeling ill, sore. Randomly I lost the use of my legs for two days and had to be wheeled into the shower by the nurses – but it wasn't all good fun.
I think the hardest aspect for me was that it seemed like the toughest regime outside of Guantanamo Bay.
Treatment continued throughout the night and the constant interruptions and sleep deprivation were so hard to deal with.
The only positive I could see was that at least journalistically I was doing something original.
We had filmed my bone marrow transplant and a number of key stages during my stay in isolation.
Finally when those five weeks passed I was safe to come out and come home.
It was simply the most incredible feeling.
Things then looked like they were improving and on September 11 (I kid you not) I got the double all clear.
I was making good progress and aiming to make a full recovery and return to work.
Unfortunately another kick in the face was just around the corner.
I developed a post-transplant complication called chronic Graft versus Host Disease which left my skin flakier than a flap jack.
The only cure for this was a massive dose of steroids.
Now despite these drugs expanding my face by approximately eight times, and making me look like an entrant in the World's Strongest Man, they had their plus sides too.
I could eat and drink like I used to and had an unnatural amount of energy.
After feeling so weak for such a long time this was a most welcome change.
During this time Baldy's Blog picked up some major awards too. It won best feature writer at the Yorkshire Press Awards, best online feature from the national Guild of Health Writers and - bizarrely - an international award at the Weblog Awards in Las Vegas.
For a pretty difficult year it was great to pick these up and really enjoy the good times that came with them.
Christmas came and I proposed to my long-term girlfriend Poppy.
She accepted and everyone seemed to be incredibly happy looking forward to a great August wedding.
Starting last month my life suddenly and spectacularly derailed.
First of all Poppy said she didn't feel the same way about me anymore and wanted out. She left me.
I was heartbroken and utterly lost.
Then the bone marrow test results showed that the leukaemia had come back big time.
A further test confirmed that it was out of control and that further treatment would be unlikely to cure it.
My decision was simple.
Now I just want to spend as much time with my friends and family as possible - as well as raising a bit of awareness.
For more information on how to become a donor, visit www.anthonynolan.org.uk, contact the charity on 0901 88 22 234 or visit www.blood.uk. To find out more about Adrian and his campaign, visit www.examiner.co.uk.
Adrian's story will also be appearing in this week's Gazette.
Adrian Sudbury
Posted by aseal at 7:28 AM | Comments (0)
May 22, 2008
Customer Service Awards
Later today I will be attending the Uxbridge Customer Service Awards presentation lunch.
The first ever awards were launched in March to recognise excellent customer service in the shops, restaurants and bars in Uxbridge town centre.
The Gazette was delighted to be part of these awards along with the Chimes Shopping Centre and The Uxbridge Initiative.
I think we have all been surprised by the number of nominations received and also the high quality of them - which made judging an extremely diffcult task. At this stage I am sworn to secrecy as to who the various winners are.
Later today at Baroosh the winners in the categories will be announced at a special awards lunch which is a a great climax to what has proved a highly successful initiative and highlighted the importance of good customer service in all establishments in our town centre.
I know that Chimes marketing manager Michelle Moffitt and town centre manager Andy Stubbs have worked extremely hard on promoting the awards and as we speak are putting the finishing touches to preperations for the presentation lunch later today.
I can only see these awards going from strength to strength and the Gazette has already pledged its support for the 2009 event.
Posted by aseal at 7:32 AM | Comments (0)
May 21, 2008
Bad news and debate
Several breaking stories made it a fairly hectic deadline day for this week's Gazette and they were the kind of stories that fall under the 'bad news' category.
We are often accused of only reporting on bad news but as I have said a number of times before all our circulation figures point to the fact that this is what sells us most newspapers - and the aim of the Gazette is to sell as many copies each week as possible.
This week's main Uxbridge front page splash is the tragic tale of the dad who died while trying to save a teenage girl struggling in the River Colne at Denham Country Park.
It's a particularly sad story which has also prompted a number of tributes being posted to our website following the death of Leonard Woodman.
With a story about a late night stabbing in Uxbridge also on the front page this week it's sometimes important to try and get a balance to the week's coverage and that's why there is some good news on page three with the story of two mums who conquered their fears to skydive to raise funds for a hospice.
This week's Gazette is a strong paper across all four editions and well worth a read.
On the subject of our website the 'have your say section' usually provides some lively debate on a number of subjects and these don't always relate to stories that have appeared in the Gazette or on the website.
I have been following this week's 'hot topic' with interest as a number of people join the debate on the rights and wrongs of people smoking in public. What ever your views might be it's well worth a look or you can even join in with the debate at http://www.uxbridgegazette.co.uk/haveyoursay
The other big debate in the office today is on who is going to win tonight's Chanpions League Final.
Best comment I have heard so far came from an Arsenal fan who said they will be supporting Manchester United because they don't want Chelsea to lift the cup before Arsenal!
Posted by aseal at 9:40 AM | Comments (0)
May 16, 2008
This week
All in all it's been quite a week at Gazette House and I am glad it's Friday afternoon and the weekend is not far away.
On Monday we had a visit from Sly Bailey the chief executive of our parent company Trinity Mirror plc.
Hence my previous comments about cleaning up the newsroom for a special visitor. The trick now is to keep it tidy and prevent the mountain of cereal boxes buildimg up again by a certain reporter's desk.
Other things going on this week have seen the lanuch of our new online buy a photograph site. You can now purchase any picture which appears in the Gazette or Leader online by simply going to http://www.uxbridgegazette.co.uk/buyaphoto
While on the subjects of websites our colleague at the Harrow Observer have this week re-launched their site and it's well worth a look at http://www.harrowobserver.co.uk
The benefit of the website was once again to the fore on Wednesday when we had a number of big breaking news stories across the borough - and all too late for the Gazette which was already out on the streets.
We were able to follow these stories closely on the website to ensure that readers got all the latest news and we will also be expanding on them in this week's paper, which is already shaping up nicely with a strong looking newslist.
I will shortly be heading down the M25 and looking forward to a relaxing start to the weekend with an evening out in a country pub with a friend.
Have a good weekend.
Posted by aseal at 2:28 PM | Comments (0)
May 8, 2008
Sunny outlook
The sudden spell of glorious weather has added a Cosmopolitan feel to Uxbridge town centre this week.
It's amazing what a bit of sun can do to raise spirits and there is a vibrant feel about the town as people stroll around and eat and drink outside in the sun.
On the subject of the town centre this week I have been helping to judge the nominations in the first ever Uxbridge Customer Service Awards.
The awards were launched in the Gazette in March and are being run in conjunction with the Chimes Shopping Centre and The Uxbridge Initiative.
I have to say I was amazed by the number of nominations received covering a large number of the retail outlets and bars and restaurants in Uxbridge town centre.
It was not an easy task for the panel of judges to come up with a shortlist of finalists and all will be revealed at an awards lunch later this month.
Our popular Hayes reporter John Hugill will be shortly leaving his colleagues at Gazette House having decided to embark on his travels around the world. I am sure that everyone will give him a good send off when he leaves early next month!
I spent part of this morning at the office of one of our sister papers in Harrow. The newsroom was a hive of activity due to the explosion in South Harrow late the previous evening which tragically left one person dead and several others injured.
The paper's website enabled the news team to fully cover the blast both in words and pictures and give regular updates to readers throughout the day. See http://www.harrowobserver.co.uk
This is a far cry from a few years ago when it would not have been until the following week's paper that such a major breaking news story could be covered.
Posted by aseal at 3:37 PM | Comments (0)
May 1, 2008
Most read stories
I thought you might be interested to see the 10 most read stories on our website over the past month so here goes.
1. Uxbridge car park death leap woman named
2. Girl seriously injured in road accident
3. Woman dies after falling from Granges car park
4. Road closed after accident in Cowley
5. Family's tributes to dead schoolboy
6. Driver helps rescue woman from crash
7. Man shot in Ruislip road
8.City hit town and they will be back on cup final day
9. Injured girl remains seriously ill in hospital
10. Teen who spat at Uxbridge Tube staff traced through salivia
With the bank holiday fast approaching - let's hope the weather improves- we are cracking on with next week's Gazette and it will be a tough couple of days for the newsdesk and production team.
I will also be on the warpath over the next few days...
One of my pet hates is the amount of rubbish that seems to accumulate in the editorial department - yes I know it's a newspaper office.
Anyway I now have the perfect excuse for a complete tidy up as we have an important visitor coming to Gazette House - more on that nearer the time - in a few weeks time.
So everyone has been warned not to leave anhything lying about otherwise it will be skipped in no time at all.
Posted by aseal at 7:47 AM | Comments (0)