I need your help, please… – 20th July 2012
Eighteen months ago today I lost my Dad, the man I then described as being ‘the best father I could ever hope to have‘, to heart failure. Dad was 78 when he left us and had been healthy up to around two years before he passed away.
Dad
Heart failure is a debilitating illness which I hadn’t even heard of before Dad was ill. It sounds very dramatic, as if people suffering suddenly keel over, but it’s actually a long and drawn out process whereby the person affected gradually becomes less mobile, due to their heart beating less efficiently.
Although heart failure takes on many forms and there are a number of treatments available, which largely consist of attempting to control the symptoms, there is currently no cure for it.
Heart failure affects at least 1% of people in the UK, with the numbers increasing steeply with age. The number of patients with heart failure is set to rise in the next 20 years, due to the combined effects of improved survival in patients who develop cardiovascular disease and an ageing population.
This summer Vodafone are trying to raise one million pounds for charities and have made it incredibly easy for people to donate and I’ve decided to make the British Heart Foundation my nominated charity, in memory of Dad.
If you’re willing to help, and you’re in the UK, simply text the words BRAY735 (with no space in between) to 70070 in order to donate £5 to the British Heart Foundation. (You can choose to donate £1, £2, £3, £4, £5 or £10 – simply replace the 5 at the end of the number above, with your chosen amount – e.g. BRAY731 to donate £1). All text donations are free to any network, you simply pay the cost of your donation. The donation will simply be added to your next bill, or taken from your credit, if you’re on pay as you go. You can find out more about Vodafone’s JustTextGiving here.
You’ll also have the opportunity to add Gift Aid to your donations, to make them even more valuable.
The great news is that if I manage to raise £100 for my charity, Vodafone have promised to double this!
I’d give anything to have Dad back with us again. Unfortunately, this isn’t possible, but one small thing I can try and do is to raise money to try and help find a cure for heart failure and ultimately stop others having loved ones taken from them by this cruel disease.
Thank you so much for taking the time to read this and for any donation, however small, that you’re able to give. It really means a lot to me and, of course, to the British Heart Foundation too!
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