Crohn's Disease - the living hell that nearly killed me

By DAISY BECKMAN

Me with my baby brother Buddy

(Donna Gee's granddaughter)
The last nine months have been living hell for me. My Crohn’s has been horrific and I’ve been in and out of hospital many times.
It all started when I went to Manchester Children’s Hospital and I was on 32 tablets a day and was rattling with drugs. I was doubled over in agony most of the time and was in desperate need of an operation to remove my extremely inflamed bowel. They did many scans and tests and found nothing. I had a nasal gastric tube placed which I hated and was fed through that and was not allowed to eat because I was vomiting when I did.
My consultant did not think I required an operation and suggested most of my pain was psychological. This made me mad and upset me more than ever to think me being in pain most if not all of the time was being completely ignored.
I went to Alder Hey children’s hospital which was very on the ball and my new consultant Dr Auth was fantastic and got all my MRI scans, bariums and scopes done straight away . When I woke up from an anaesthetic I was told I required an operation to remove some bowels and that it would be pretty straight forward. My operation was planned for two months time - not long after my 13th birthday.
I went to my outpatient’s appointment in a wheelchair as I was in that much pain and so weak that I could hardly walk. Dr Auth said I had to be admitted straight away so I went to ward E3 for the night. The next morning I was wheeled down to ultrasound and they found the unexpected. I had no clue what was going on but my surgeon was called to ultrasound and was very concerned. Then I was told in two hours time I would be operated on.
I was panicking like mad so my nurse gave me some premed before theatre to calm me down and I was all drugged up and completely out of it . I don’t remember anything after that .
I had had the biggest operation of my life lasting seven hours. I had an abscess stuck near my kidney which nearly killed me and a stricture. I had lost loads of blood during the operation and needed a blood transfusion.
I have had such a traumatic time and I just wanted to thank you all so much for doing this Walk for me it really does mean a lot. I wish I could be there to thank you all personally but I am so far behind with my studies that I really have no time for anything but schoolwork at present.
 You are all wonderful for supporting research which will hopefully make the sort of pain I have suffered a thing of the past. Your donations really do make a difference.To end I want to say a huge thank you to my grandma Donna for doing a sponsored slim to help CICRA and for making people more aware of the pain and suffering of children with Crohn’s through her column in The Courier newspaper in Spain.

My fundraising angels are the Crohn jewels of charity

Ready to walk the Walk...my friends raised £1,200 plus

I’VE never been any good at expressing myself through a microphone ­-- so forgive me for reserving part of this week’s column as a grotto of gratitude.
For the past four months I have been trying to raise funds for a charity close to my heart…a cause dedicated to ending the suffering of youngsters like my granddaughter Daisy, who almost lot her life to Crohn’s Disease.
My cunning plan was to try to lose two and a half stone through a sponsored diet. It was hardly a Mission Impossible…indeed it was Mission Dare Not Fail, because I could hardly let Daisy down by continuing to resemble the Princess of Whales.
In the 16 weeks I’ve been fighting the flab, I’ve lost all but half a stone of that 35lbs target, but it’s been tough going, believe me. I also made a mess of the sponsorship side because of my inexplicable embarrassment  when it comes to asking people for money. And because I was so naïve that I didn’t realise I should have recruited sponsors to back me BEFORE I started losing weight.
The end result is that although my online fundraising  stood at the start of this week at 25 per cent more than my original £500 target, I probably missed out on double that amount through my lack of fundraising skills.
But CICRA, the Crohn’s in Children Research Association, are about to get a big surprise, thanks to my amazing friends Dee Williams and Susan Reader and the unbelievable support of an expat community whose generosity knows no bounds.
Susan, one of the Costa’s most prolific voluntary fundraisers, and Dee – who runs Bar Sofia in El Raso,- decided to give a boost to my uninspiring efforts to fill CICRA’s coffers. I didn’t ask them to help…they formed their own Daisy chain and plated it with gold in the form of a Charity Walk and Fun Day
I had expected perhaps half a dozen sad souls to take part in the short 2.5km walk and perhaps a dozen to come along to the subsequent activities at Sofia’s.
There were five times that number, with dozens more thronging Sofia’s for the fashion show and commercial mini market that followed. The Walk and Fun Day, plus raffle and other ‘extras’, have already generated a staggering €1,200 plus…and the money is still coming in.
The bottom line is that the £759.93 I have raised for CICRA in sponsorship and gift aid is about to rocket to more than £2,000 even if nothing more comes in before I complete my diet on June 30.
Some €500 of this latest cash injection came from two sources….€200 from the now defunct El Raso Neighbourhood Watch, for which I thank Barbara Roebuck and Tony Bowhey in particular, and an unbelievable €300 collected personally by my neighbours Marie and Colin Whitfield. Ever-helpful and ever-willing, the golden hearted couple’s wad of sponsorship forms included the name of just about every soul on the urbanisation.
As I write, my Just Giving charity page shows only the £759.93 contributed to CICRA by sponsors of my diet. Sunday’s  jackpot will be added in the next few days but I doubt that will be the end of it… because the philanthropy of the expat community seems to know no bounds.
Just keep checking www.justgiving.com/donna-gee and you’ll see what I mean…
 

The night David Beckham drove me into a car park in the dark...

David Beckham’s football career might have ended 15 years ago had I not pointed him in the right direction.
He’d probably still be looking for the car park at Manchester’s city-centre Ramada Hotel (now the Renaissance).
It was a night I’ll never forget...a charity spectacular for sick and terminally ill children involving 30 of the biggest names in North-west sport.
The then unknighted  Alex Ferguson was there, along with Manchester United stars Paul Scholes and Nicky Butt and a host of other A-list stars including future England cricket captain Andrew Flintoff.
The celebs mingled with 300 paying guests at a  fundraising evening-dress event based on BBC TV’s A Question of Sport. And as a committee member, I was assigned to the welcoming desk in the hotel reception area.

UNITED FOR CHARITY: Beckham, Ferguson, Scholes and Butt

All but one of the celebrities had been escorted up to the banqueting suite and Beckham was the only name not crossed off my list.
I looked at my watch and decided to give him a tiny bit longer. I mean, I wanted to see Posh Spice's fella close up.
I stood there alone, people-watching—and wondering what I would say if Becks actually showed up.
Then it happened. There was no dramatic entrance. In fact, it was an extremely hesitant Beckham who emerged from the swing doors, looking shy and confused.
I made a beeline for the Old Trafford glamour boy. ‘‘Hi David,’’ I said. ‘‘I’m…’’
.‘‘How do I get to the hotel car park?’’ he interjected edgily.‘‘Where’s your car?’’ I said.
“Out there.’’
He pointed vaguely in the direction of Blackfriars Street.
I hardly expected it to be in Birmingham but I resisted the temptation to joke with the clearly agitated youngster.
“Turn left at the traffic lights,’’ I said. “The entrance is 100 yards down on the left. You can’t miss it.’’
Beckham clearly found bending a ball into a net from 35 yards a much simpler challenge than bending his BMW sports car 200 metres around a corner.
But his confusion didn’t surprise me. These were the days when "y’know" constituted roughly 80 percent of the entire Beckham vocabulary.
‘‘No problem, I’ll come with you,’’ I said, heading for the swing doors. England’s most fanciable footballer followed me out, relieved that he didn’t have to go it alone.
Gleaming at us from across the road was that luxurious blue Beckham BMW.  I tried to start a conversation as we waited for the traffic lights to change, hoping he might just leak an exclusive story. But the Beckham of the late ‘90s seemed incapable of stringing a full sentence together
Either that or he was petrified of Fergie’s hair-dryer burning his golden locks if he said anything out of place..
For the rest of the two minute journey I clung to Beckham’s every word. Both of them.
And before you could say "you know," we were  facing a key-card protected barrier at the car-park entrance. “I’ll get someone to let you in,’’ I said, leaping out.
Somewhere in the gloom, a white apron and chef’s hat ghosted out of a door, with a camp cook inside them.
“Can I help?’’ asked the food fairy, lighting a cigarette and trumping Beckham’s array of continuous words in a single spurt.
“How do we get the barrier raised?’’ I asked, indicating the BMW at the barrier.:  “I’ve got David Beckham over there trying to get in.’’
“David Beckham? WHERE?!!!!!’’
Suddenly there were people in white aprons everywhere.
The barrier lifted as if by magic, Beckham and BMW eased into an empty parking space to a round of applause from the gathered cuisinery, and I reflected on the fortune Beckham's Car Park Chronicles could have earned me had I managed to get his lips moving.
But the only story I got was this one.