Smile Train correspondence

Here is the letter I got back after I started donating:

Dear Mr. Fernie,

A few months ago, I sent you a thank you letter and in it I promised to send you a photo of a child we were able to help with your donation. I am sorry it took me so long but I did not forget.

Please allow me to introduce Smile Train patient Errol Ayson.

Errol is a one-year-old boy who lives in one of the poorest areas of the Philippines. His operation was performed by Dr Gilbert Esquejo on 19 February 2009 at the Philippines Band of Mercy Hospital. As you can see, his surgery went really well. It took less than an hour to put that big smile on his little face, a smile that will last for the rest of his life.

Errol does not know how lucky he is.

Most children born with clefts in the Philippines never receive surgery because they are too poor to ever afford it and there are no government programmes that provide it. 25% of people in the Philippines live on less than £1 a day, and most of the children we help live on much less. Without the Smile Train programme - and without donors like you - Errol would probably have suffered his entire life without ever receiving surgery.

I hope that you put these pictures up on your fridge or somewhere else you can see them so they'll be a happy reminder that there is a little boy half way around the world smiling today thanks to you.

On behalf of Errol and all the children we will help this year, I thank you.

With the economic crisis and our donations being down %22, your generous gift could not have come at a better time.

Thank you,

Brian
Co-Founder / Chairman.


Powerful stuff, eh? What other charity can do so much for so little? I doubt my £10 per month could have bought me more satisfaction with any other charity.

The other day I had a new hands free kit put in our car that also hooks up to an iPod. Annoyingly my iPod is the generation just before the oldest ones the hands free kit supports. So I went straight out and bought a shiny new iPod Nano in glorious orange and it cost £106. I'm not loaded by any stretch but I could afford to do that pretty much without thinking. £106 to someone like Errol is utterly unthinkable. When you can't even afford to have your face fixed, owning a new iPod must seem as unlikely as buying a Rolls Royce or flying to the moon.

Thank God for the Smile Train and big up yourself Dr Esquejo.

Here is the letter and before and afters of little Errol.

Talk about the feelgood factor!

What Now?! - one year on

Well, actually, tomorrow is the official anniversary of this blog but the reason for it is a year old today. It's gone past very quickly and the memory of the moment the sonographer said that all wasn't quite as it should be will be with us forever. I can still remember the warm feeling I got, as if about to faint, very clearly. We've come such a long way since.

People always say that a year goes past quickly. This is true in some cases but for us, it's been while since a year went fast. The reason a year flashes by is normally when nothing major happens. The days, weeks and months all blend into one another. Major events such as a house move, a job change, a marriage, a birth etc all provide big contexts to a given year. Since 2005, I've set up, run and sold a business, moved jobs 3 times, lived at 4 addresses, planned and had a wedding, Clare's been pregnant (twice), gone through the cleft thing and had a baby. All of these events have kept us on our toes so each year that passes seems eventful enough so as not to go by without notice. The next year maybe more likely to flash past and I for one will welcome that - no more nasty surprises, major events please, just some stability and predictability!

A busy day on the blog today but there's a lot going on.

Happy Birthday to What Now?! Thanks for reading.

Another boy!!!

Just got the fantastic news that Cosby Jnr number two (the one I first mentioned here) was born last night.

Candy gave birth to a little baby boy at 2.52am weighing 7lbs 12oz and 7 days early. There had been some complications early on but everything sorted itself out and Candy was able to have the home birth she wanted all along.

I was only playing Call of Duty online with Ben 12 hours ago, when he went offline to give Candy a birthing massage! I guess it did the trick as we've just got the email to say that all went smoothly and the new boy arrived safe and sound.

Massive congratulations to Ben, Candy and Noah who have now become the full nuclear family (whatever that means - actually, I think it means you don't have to have any more kids!).

Can't wait to meet the little fella. Wonderful news.

Friday's child is loving and giving.

Life isn't about waiting for the storm to pass; it's about learning to dance in the rain

Guess what everybody, it's another episode of the 'Jake's never gonna sleep properly' show.

I have a slight sore throat which is making things worse, but I can honestly say that today is the tiredest I've ever been. So tired in fact, that I don't even care that tiredest isn't a word. It might be but I can't be bothered to check.

Friends of ours had a night nanny for a night when their daughter was about Jake's age and had a similar sleep pattern. It was expensive but I'm seriously considering it. The idea of having a full night of sound, deep sleep is so seductive, I'd give my life savings. If I had any.

Jake was officially a 'shit' all day yesterday, firstly according to Clare's daily report which I get when I come home and then secondly as witnessed first hand. He didn't eat much all day, didn't want his milk, seemed constipated (although not when I checked!) and then slept like a woman going through the change.

Awake, screaming at 1.50am, again at 3am, fed at 3.20am, berserk at 3.50am and eventually slept from 5am to about 7am. So I managed around 4.5 hours of broken sleep and again have woken up feeling like I've died. I mentioned to him this morning that he was 'ruining my life', mainly to get a laugh out of Clare (but perhaps never a truer word than is said in jest) and he smiled at me. The bugger. What is it with that smile which changes my mood so? How can he go from villain to saviour with one tiny movement? It seems that however far he pushes us, how ever much we want to be angry, he can bring us back into line with one solitary action.

I don't know how I will ever successfully discipline him. Last night I watched the second episode in a rerun of series 1 of the Inbetweeners, a very funny show about 4 seventeen(ish) year old lads who don't fit in and follows their adolescent antics. One day they all skipped school, got drunk, called their best mate's dad gay, vandalised another's drive way, puked on a prospective girl friend and ended up getting caught red handed. Sat there taking their lecture, Will (the sensible one) gave an implausible excuse that they were all alcoholics and could only get through the hard times ahead with the love and support of their parents. The father who was in charge of the dressing down tried to continue his discipline but just laughed. That'll be me, I reckon. Not that I want Jake to become a tearaway but as long as he doesn't break any major laws or do anything nasty, I can't see how I'll be able to stay angry for too long. I'm not really a grudge person and I am pretty forgiving anyway but I will have to practice my serious face so it seems genuine when he gets caught drunk and disorderly later in life (like his dad did!).

Is coffee the answer? Or rather the problem?

I like keep an eye on all things cleft via the Google News reader which is pretty good at feeding stuff through. I've decided that I should link to some of the articles which come up. Some are interesting and others like this one seem crazy.

This report claims that;

'Women drinking a daily cup of coffee during the first 3 months of pregnancy were 1.39 times more likely to have a baby with harelip and the likelihood increased to 1.59 for women who drank 3 or more cups of coffee a day'

Given that Clare has never drunk a cup of coffee in her life, this made me smile. Every day there's a new report saying that tomatoes give us cancer, mobile phones fry our brains or that too much water makes us urinate and it makes it hard to know what to believe anymore.

The article also goes on to say;

'Recently, a study showed women drinking more than 3 cups of coffee a day had 17% smaller breasts.'

Which says it all really.