NHS Grampian’s Inverurie-based midwifery team members took it in
turns to run 5km every day in February to support one of their colleagues
through the most challenging of times and help raise money for Friends of
ANCHOR.
Alana Newcombe (35)
is a healthcare support worker at the Inverurie Community Maternity Unit and
her husband Mark (36) was first diagnosed with Acute Myeloid Leukemia in 2011.
The couple have two young children and Mark has already had one stem cell transplant
but is now fighting another round of the disease.
Team leader Jude
Falconer explained: “When Mark’s blood profile allows, he will receive a second
transplant. In the meantime and since Christmas he decided to run 5km a day to
raise awareness and promote the ANCHOR Unit. Unfortunately, he’s been advised he’s
not well enough to continue this at the moment and the midwifery team decided
to step in and take on the challenge for him.
“We were all gutted for Mark so promised him we would do the runs for him in February to enable his awareness and fundraising to continue. The team have been running, walking and swimming, and taking photos of themselves taking part. We even had special ‘Team Mark’ t-shirts printed and a T-shirt with ‘Captain’ on it for Mark!”
As well as engaging in lots of extra outdoor pursuits together, individually, and even on annual leave in Iceland, the team worked out that doing 136 laps of their unit in Inverurie is equivalent to 5km.
Mark commented: “NHS Grampian’s ANCHOR Unit does amazing work to help patients and families, and the extra support given by Friends of ANCHOR is second-to-none. Thank you to the midwifery team for all their support.”