The guest speaker on Tuesday 16 September was T. Sandeman-Charles.

T. gave us quick whistle-stop tour from her humble beginnings as a legal secretary, then working in TV with folks like Benny Hill, Barrymore etc… After many happy years she changed career and became a cookery demonstrator with the Pampered Chef.  It was within 5 years that T.'s team turnover was in excess of £1 Millon and then 2 years later became a multi-million pound team turnover business.  It was in December 2010 that she gave it all up.  She walked away from the business that she truly loved but with no pay out, no bonus, no financial gain of any sort. (Most members at this point probably thought “but why?”). T. was diagnosed with two serious lung diseases. Organising fibrosing pneumonia and idiopathic pleuroparenchymal fibroelastosis. The consequence is that she needs a lung transplant.

The fact is that there are just not enough organ donors. Each person that registers to donate their organs and tissue on death can save five lives. T.’s response was to start www.save5.org.uk to help here achieve the goal of getting 10,000 people to register (to date she has 2,273 people) so 7,727 to go.

T. was invited by BSBC member Denis O’Regan (Easykey) and here is a summary of his short talk:

I have a personal reason I invited T. to the BSBC. As a founder member of the BSBC I have known many of you for years and you have met my family through events such as our band WildFire with Carol (Bass Guitar), Brendan (Drums), Declan (lights and sound) and Aisling with the occasional songs.

Many of you know that Aisling has Cystic Fibrosis.

What is Cystic Fibrosis?

Cystic Fibrosis (CF) affects the internal organs especially the lungs and digestive system.

It is a genetically inherited disease and to put it simply any fluids your body secretes are thicker and stickier than normal. This causes severe lung infections makes it hard to breathe and digest food. 1 in 25 people carry the gene, and if two of those get together they have a 1 in 4 chance of a having a child affected with CF. 50% of people with CF live past late 30s. There is no cure.

Here is a picture Aisling sent me last week…

She sent me this photo of her wearing a Bipap mask. Basically she had got to the point where she was just too exhausted to breathe and her muscles had seized.  This amazing machine detects when she is about to breathe in and then pumps her lungs with oxygen enriched air. She had a couple of days where she couldn’t even talk. As you can see she has gone downhill fairly swiftly in the last 9 months. Here lungs are running at around 27% efficiency and the latest is she has been given an estimated 3 to 5 years to live.

The very latest news is that she visiting Harefield Hospital on 21 Sep as she has taken the brave decision to put herself on the Heart and Lung transplant list. If she is successful this will mean she has a chance of gaining 10 (possibly more) years.

Things however are not all doom and gloom. Here is a picture of Aisling with her Fiancée Chris who will be arriving from the USA next week.

They plan to live in Chelmsford and get married next year.

Our hope is that she will get onto the donor list. Currently there are just not enough people registered so she has about a 50/50 chance of receiving a match in time.

Could I therefore take this opportunity to thank T. for the tremendous work she is doing and even if you think you are registered or have a donor card please follow the 2 simple steps on the home page of www.save5.org.uk