Big Yellow Friday! Children’s Liver Disease Foundation

Steve, aka Colin Firth, and Pam, being ... well ... Steve and Pam

I arrived yesterday at my cousin Pam’s in Bridlington at around 2 pm.  I had a quick walk to the house from the train station as Pam and her husband Steve were busy at the golf course running a fundraising event called Big Yellow Friday for the Children’s Liver Disease Foundation.  They came home later and all of us, along with a couple friend of theirs, headed back to the golf course for distribution of prizes, a raffle, and an auction.  All in all it was a very successful event.

Sorrell, a friend of Elle's gets people to buy raffle tickets at the well attended event of about 70 people

Pam worked really hard on this fundraising event and has been very involved raising awareness for this foundation due to her daughter’s condition, which is autoimmune hepatitis.  This came out of the blue.  Last August I visited Pam for her birthday and we had a great fun bash and Elle was having fun with her girlfriends looking just fine.  Then about 5 days after that party, and I had left, she suddenly became very ill and was vomiting continuously.

Elle poses with a little friend Billy, who later wowed us with his dancing

So rightly enough, Pam was quite concerned and took her to the hospital.  Long story short, it was swiftly discovered that 2/3 of her liver was damaged and it had been being attacked by her own immune system.  In fact, she had likely had the disease for possibly 3 – 5 years but all the symptoms were easily overlooked as they appeared to be typical teenager stuff – a broken wrist, colds, fainting from time to time, these sorts of things.

Steve helps Billy pull a raffle ticket

Well when your liver is not functioning properly some of the side effects are that your bones become more brittle as they are not receiving the proper nutrition, you are more susceptible to getting sick and fainting can occur due to not getting enough energy.  And to top that off, the few times that Pam did take Elle in to see the doctor, they usually just figured it was a virus or something and no one was the wiser.

Raffle prizes - I got one of those bottles of wine!

Well by the time she got to the hospital and was fully tested and investigated Pam was told that Elle needed to go on a transplant list and they figured she had 6 – 12 months to live.  So receiving this kind of news about your 16 year old daughter would certainly spur a mother to become fully informed about the disease and to do everything she could do to change this path for her daughter.

Pam and her trusty MC - Arthur

Well on a positive note, likely because Elle is young and responded well to medication and diet changes, she has been able to arrest the attack on her liver and is holding the disease at bay for the moment.  However, this does not mean that things do not remain tenuous.  It is amazing the things that can happen out of the blue.  But for now she is doing well and is suspended from requiring a transplant for the time being.

Elle, Gina and Sorrell

So kudos to Pam, Steve, Elle for all their hard work raising awareness.  The goal for the CLDF was to raise 70,000 pounds across the UK on this Big Yellow Friday and Pam and Steve raised 2,750 pounds or almost 4% of the total.  Good on them.  It was fun as is everytime I visit Pam.  They have a great group of friends who come out to support them and celebrate and care when the moment requires.

Me being, well, me.