Our Charities

Day 89 – Walking With The Wounded

Many may wonder why we are raising money for two charities that seem to be completely different. Well, it’s because they have a common purpose; both charities support their personnel with an holistic approach, to support through the adversities that they’ve faced and help them to see beyond the illness or injury. The charities create opportunities for sufferers to be able to speak and learn from others who have gone through the same, they work towards re-education and re-training to show them what a fulfilling life they can achieve going forwards. I have seen a number of ex servicemen come through an expedition with Walking With The Wounded and it’s transformed their lives, re-ignited an inner confidence and belief in what they can achieve. There are so many amazing charities out there, but WWTW stood out to me because it aligns with my passion of Paralympic sport. They demonstrate through their expeditions, to focus on the abilities their wounded personnel have and not to wallow in the disability. At Headley Court, this is where the in-house rehabilitation process begins, to teach personnel how to walk again or adapt to use of prostheses etc. the attitude they demonstrate reflects the spirit of the military personality, if you have a below knee amputation well it’s deemed as a ‘mere scratch’, if you have lost one upper limb and a lower limb, again there is always someone else worse off than you. Having this approach hopefully helps them to accept their disability and make a smooth transition into society. However, leaving the military must be very hard for some who have only ever known military living. This is where WWTW come into their own, they have amazing experts around them to help support those finding it difficult and the aim of the charity is to prove to them what they can do and not focus on what they can’t.

WWTW’s mission is to support all veterans with physical, mental or social injury to gain the skills and qualifications necessary to develop new careers outside the military, re-integrate into society and provide long-term security for themselves and their families. The monies we raise are specifically going towards women that have been injured at war. Check out the website here

In addition to the services they provide, since the charity was founded in 2010 by Ed Parker, WWTW have organised and run ambitious expeditions to extreme parts of the world incorporating teams of wounded servicemen and women, both with physical and mental injuries.

The rationale behind their expeditions to the North Pole in 2011, Everest in 2012 and more recently to the South Pole in 2013 focus on both the wounded as well as wider society and include:

– To raise awareness of the work Walking With The Wounded undertakes.

– To provide inspiration to those coping daily with injury and disability.

– To demonstrate to ‘Our Wounded’ that they are able to achieve at the very highest level.

– To highlight to Corporate UK the extraordinary skill, determination, ability and courage that members of the wounded community possess despite injury.

All of their expeditions are sponsored in their entirety by corporate partners and their funding is separate from the generous donations they receive for the charity. This ensures monies they receive from fundraising activity are distributed solely into their re-education and re-training programs and not into funding any elements of the expeditions.

The latest expedition is the Walk of Britain, which has seen four British and two US wounded veterans walk 1,000 miles across mainland Britain, starting in Scotland on August 22nd and finishing at Buckingham Palace on November 1st (72 days in total). The team are Alec Robotham, Matt Fisher, Scott Ransley, Stewart Hill, Kirstie Ennis and Andrew Bement.

Find out more about The Walk Of Britain here.

Hopefully it will be timed that when the Walk of Britain team finish, we may well also be arriving into Samoa. So whilst we may moan about salt sores, I’m sure they’re enduring worse with irritation of their stumps, or back issues where a leg length may be putting them out. Whilst we do our wet:dry routine every 2 hours to get on or off the oars, it’s a reminder of how difficult it can be to simply put on a pair of dry socks when you only have one functional hand. It certainly acts as motivation for us, that no matter how much the weather and currents are against us, the Walk of Britain team and many other injured service personnel are inspiring us to draw on our abilities without complaint.

Update:

Thanks to the lovely Johannes of Victron Energy and co-ordination of Tony, we have finally got ourselves back on track with being able to use and recharge our personal electronics. The power issue started when unbeknownst to us one of our eight solar panels failed and because of how the solar panels are wired together the failure resulted in us losing a big percentage of our battery charging ability. Over time, with the unknown reduced charge going to our two batteries, we noticed the batteries were gradually dropping and despite conserving as much power as we could we didn’t seem to be able to get one of the batteries to fully charge back up. The inability to fully charge one of the batteries concerned me as normally I ensure we recharge both our batteries to 100% at least once a week which allows the batteries to equalise and synchronise with the battery monitors. With the help of Tony remotely, I was able to fault find and discover one of the solar panels had indeed failed. Disconnecting the broken solar panel from the system meant that we regained the charge ability from the other working panels, however after several days of good solar charging conditions and continued power conservation one of the batteries still appeared to be at a much lower state of charge than the other. After lots of correspondence back and forth, Tony discussed things with Johannes and shared all the test meter results I had given them from the boat and it was felt that one of the battery monitors wasn’t giving a true reading of the battery’s actual state of charge. After manually synchronising the battery monitors to show both batteries were 100% full the batteries are now showing to be fully functioning, discharging and recharging equally again. So no more concerns over lack of power, which means we can have music again!!

As a side note, some of us can charge our iPods from Power Monkeys (portable solar chargers) we can have on deck, but unfortunately not all our iPods are compatible with the Power Monkeys, so music has been scarce for the last few weeks – I have no idea what I’ve been thinking about nor what we have talked about for that time, but some how we managed even when it was during the difficult conditions.

As we head into the final couple of weeks before we leave the UK for San Francisco and the start of our row, it is full steam ahead on all fronts. Our friends and family witness us rushing around like headless chickens day in day out. But what is it that we are actually doing? Well, I thought I’d shed some light on it all by listing just a few of the things that we are getting on with every day.

• Media – we want to raise as much awareness for our charities as possible, so we are busy sending out press releases and arranging and attending radio and TV interviews. We were on BBC London the week before last. If you missed it, you can see it here: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=OzpmXB9pH1Y

• Presentations – we are speaking at conferences, schools and corporates to share the story behind our row and hopefully inspire others to follow our progress on the water, fundraise for us, or to take on their own challenges.

• Logistics and equipment – sourcing last minute bits of equipment, arranging for the boat to be wrapped with our sponsors’ logos, applying the graphics for our Buy A Mile inspiration wall in our cabin, arranging shipment of food out to Hawaii and Samoa….There is a lot going on!!

• Fundraising – we are working with our amazing charities, Breast Cancer Care and Walking With The Wounded to set everything up so that we can raise as much money as we can for them while we are out at sea.

• Accounting, legal and project management – a project of this scale needs to be run properly and the fantastic teams at Accord Accountants and Redd solicitors are very generously offering us invaluable accountancy and legal support. We have been working with Andrew Duncan from New Level Results to ensure that we are setting clear goals, running our project efficiently and making 2015 our Best Year Yet.

• Support team plan – the outstanding Tony Humphreys will be providing us with 24-7 shore support during our row. We are meeting with Tony in the run-up to launch to finalise our communications and operations plan. We are also working with our team of supporters in the UK to make sure that our website, Facebook and Twitter will be regularly updated with the messages that we send back from the Pacific so that people will be able to follow our progress.

• Psych preparation – we are continuing to work with the amazing performance psychologist Keith Goddard to make sure that individually and as a team we are in the best possible mental shape when we are on the start line in April.

• Training – over the course of this week and next week we are doing medical training with MSOS, training on our navigation equipment with the fantastic team at Raymarine and training on our ocean safety equipment with the amazing Crewsaver. We will also be running over our ‘what if’ scenarios one more time to make sure that we are prepared as we can be for the different scenarios that we might face while at sea.

• Physiological testing – we have just had health checks with Cardiac Risk in the Young and just before we depart will be returning to GSK Human Performance Lab, who are helping us to prepare as best we can for the physical challenges we will face.

• Physical training – we’re fitting in a heavy program of weights prescribed by Alex Wolf from the English Institute of Sport, pilates with support from Josie at Urban Cave and, of course, a little bit of time on the rowing machine.

• Eating ­– we’re likely to be calorie deficient when we are out on the water, so we are busy piling on the pounds!

• Sponsorship – we have some incredible sponsors supporting us and we need to keep them updated with how preparations are going. We are also still looking for additional corporate sponsorship, so we spend lots of time researching, emailing and meeting with potential sponsors. If you are interested in sponsoring our row, please get in touch.

• Farewell drinks – we’re making the arrangements for the drinks reception that we are hosting on Thursday 26^th March at 7pm at London Rowing Club to say a big thank you and farewell to our friends, family, supporters and sponsors. We would love to see as many people there as possible! Email info@coxlesscrew.com if you want to join us.

Patricia Elouahabi, a mother who found a profound inner strength to deal with an aggressive form of breast cancer during her pregnancy, died 6 months after her baby was born. Her husband Rashid, will never forget Patricia’s incredible resilience and spirit and baby Yasin’s who also fought for 3 months in intensive care. The Coxless Crew (aiming to be the first four’s boat to row across the Pacific), will be sharing this story, amongst others, by facing their own adversities and creating awareness for women like Patricia and their two charities they are rowing for, Breast Cancer Care and Walking With The Wounded!

“There will come a point when we will all be tested. Tricia faced her battle and so did Yasin. As long as we are willing to fight, we will always succeed.” Rashid Elouahabi

Mother’s day is a time to celebrate and reflect the courage, inspiration and wisdom that mothers seem to automatically have. The Coxless Crew (aiming to be the first fours boat to row across the Pacific Ocean) wanted to share one of their stories of a particular mother that has made a huge impact on their lives.

Patricia Elouahabi, was diagnosed with an aggressive form of breast cancer when she fell pregnant with her first child in 2012. Having been informed that she would need radical surgery as well as strong treatment, that would affect her unborn baby, she fought through the symptoms of the cancer during her pregnancy and despite knowing that it was detrimental to her own health, wanted to ensure that her son would have the best chance and be the strongest that he could be. They were given a reprieve of a ‘2 week’ window which meant that their little baby boy Yasin could be delivered by C-section at 28 weeks old, weighing in at only 2 pounds!

Two days after the delivery, Patricia began the arduous journey of chemotherapy and radiotherapy followed by a major chest surgery. Even during the hardship of the therapies, Trish would take herself to the intensive care unit to spend the day with Yasin, wanting to feed, wash and change him, regardless of how weak she may have felt. She found an incredible inner strength and continued to be positive and smile for her son and husband. However after 3 months of treatment, battling against the odds, Patricia was diagnosed with secondaries in her spine. She was given 3 months to live that was cut even shorter.

Although this story does not have a fairytale ending, it shows the immense strength of human spirit and the resilience and strength shown by not only Patricia but also her husband Rashid.

It is this story, as well as others, that are the source of inspiration for the Coxless Crew taking on their huge challenge and they want to take this opportunity to share the wise words from Patricia and to celebrate the strength of all mothers everywhere.

‘Live and laugh every day, spend time with your family and love your family, live with nothing left un-said or undone, knowing that if today was your last there would be no regrets.’ Patricia Elouahabi

We were very fortunate last month to have the opportunity and the pleasure to meet Kylie Minogue. “How did you get Kylie?” is the question we often get asked, so here is the simple answer.

Belief and perseverance!

We had approached the pop icon to be part of our epic journey a few months ago as we truly believed that she aligns perfectly with our ethos and values. This is what we told her:

Why Kylie?

We are looking to align ourselves with an amazing patron who we feel fits in with our ethos and reason for doing this incredible challenge.

We have all grown up with you in our lives. From our daily Neighbours after school watching days, to your fabulous music, ability to entertain and then the inspirational role model that you have become from your own personal experience and self-development of fighting and overcoming breast cancer. You continually empower women, which is what our expedition is all about. We also love that fact that you have a presence in the UK, Australia and also the US, meaning that you have a connection with every step of our journey.

We are implementing a schools project and allowing children (girls and boys) to reach for their dreams and allow themselves to be inspired to do anything they want to do.

We were simply overjoyed (I’m not going to lie!) when she made contact to say that she was happy to support such a worthwhile cause. We managed to coordinate an opportunity for us to meet her and get a group photo and have a little chat.

(Short video edit is by Dean Alexander and his colleagues at TimecodePro)

All photos are copyright Dean Alexander

In the private meeting between Kylie and us we discussed the practicalities of such a huge undertaking as well as the reason why we are so thrilled to have her support in creating awareness of women that have had to fight and overcome adversity. She expressed her genuine interest in following the journey and the total wonder in how the 4 of us will remain sane and connected during such a long time separated from the usual home comforts and loved ones.

She is so genuine, down to earth and truly humble. It was a wonderful experience in itself to meet her, let alone the fact that she is now supporting our expedition.

The Australian born singer-songwriter recently named Australian of the year in the UK, also has had a strong presence in both the starting and ending points of our journey, as we’ve mentioned before, so let’s see if we will not only have relief and elation when we hit Cairns around October time, but also Kylie welcoming us back onto dry land!

Unfortunately Izzy was not available on the day that Kylie could meet us and so we had Ella (one of our support team) step in to be in her place for the informal chat and photo opportunity.
The photos were taken by the amazing Dean Alexander and the short video edit is by Dean and his colleagues at TimecodePro
A HUGE thanks to them for coming and capturing the day for us.

We also love our Adidas hoodie’s and even Kylie wished she was in her tracksuit!!

It is one of those surreal moments that is such a perfect example of how incredible our journey has been so far… x

Through my work as a Physio, there are characteristics that I see in a select few that show the true meaning of mental resilience; the depth, determination and belief in their goal which seems to be drawn on when being faced with adversity. What continues to amaze me, is the fight that people have to overcome it.

Over the next few months, I plan to share with you the stories that are particularly close to me and those people that have truly made an impact on who I am today.

PATRICIA, RASHID & YASIN:

I met Rashid a few years ago when I worked in a private sports clinic & his bubbly, positive nature and love of sports and his family, meant that outside of the therapy room we had become friends. He had just got married and him his wife, Patricia, were expecting their first child. Thinking back to how they were then, I wish I could turn back the clock for them.

After spending a recent evening with Rashid and his son Yasin, it was the first time where he shared with me photos of his wedding day to Patricia, photos of the birth of their son Yasin and the most poignant of all, a video taken with Patricia just 2 days before she died. The overwhelming emotion that I felt isn’t even a scratch on what Rashid is going through and it highlighted to me that their story is one to be shared. This is one of the most heart wrenching stories that I’ve ever experienced and it’s the fact that it’s reality, it’s not a film or a fictional story, but this is a close friend of mines’ real life story.

2 years ago, nearly to the day, Rashid and Patricia couldn’t have been happier, they had reached where most of us dream of, to find true love in a sole mate, in someone that gets you, in someone that you realise you want to spend the rest of your life with. It was 2012 and they had just got married which was a beautiful family affair and was everything they had wished for. On the return from their honeymoon, they found out the exciting news that they were pregnant, and for them if ever ‘perfect’ existed, then now was the time.

However for Trish and Rashid, pure happiness was short lived. Just 3 months later, Patricia got the devastating news that she had an aggressive form of breast cancer and in order to treat it, she would need radical surgery along with chemotherapy and radiotherapy which wouldn’t be suitable for their unborn child. They had a tough decision to make, to save Patricia’s life or their unborn baby. A decision that you can never wish on anyone. However they were given a reprieve of a ‘2 week’ window which became to be quite pertinent in a number of situations, but those 2 weeks meant that their little baby boy Yasin could be delivered by C-section at 28 weeks old, weighing in at a weighty 2 pounds!

The delivery was the Friday and the following Monday Patricia commenced the arduous journey of chemotherapy and radiotherapy. Their days/ weeks/months blurred into one, with Rashids’ days spent morning and night in the ITU with Yasin, then by his wife’s bedside, whilst still being dedicated to stay focussed as a school teacher at work in the day. Whilst he was doing that, Patricia who had just had a C-section, was going through all the chemotherapy and radiotherapy, followed by radical chest surgery. Yet Trish would take herself into ITU, to spend the day with Yasin, wanting to feed/ wash/ change him, regardless of how weak she may have felt.

However this was the pinnacle reflection point that Rashid kept highlighting to me, both himself, the family and even Patricia herself were amazed at where she got her strength from. Patricia would openly say that she was a ‘girly girl’, loved her heels, her hair being immaculate and presenting herself & would previously have complained about any ache or pain or a small scratch on her knee. But yet during this, something just switched on, everyone around her saw this inner strength that just ignited, to the point where she’d even turned to Rashid to say ‘this isn’t me, I don’t know where this is coming from….’. When faced with the adversity of loosing the love of her life, the newborn gorgeous baby boy that she’d just carried, natural instinct and inner strength told her to fight. The astounding thing with Tricia, is that she did it all with a smile on her face & humour throughout, refusing to ever complain.

I have only ever loved watching films that have a happy ending, where regardless of what adversity people have faced you wish only the best to come out of it, for them to overcome it and live a happily ever after life, because to me that’s what people like Rashid and Patricia deserve.

However this was one of those cases that fate/ faith whichever you want to believe, had taken that opportunity away from them. After 3 months of treatment, battling against the odds, Patricia was diagnosed with secondaries in her spine. She was given 3 months prognosis to live which was cut short to surviving only a few weeks.

The other night Rashid showed me a video that he took of Patricia by her bed side 2 days before she passed away. It was a video where she could barely open her eyes, she went through giving each member of the family a message, reminiscing of funny anecdotes fluctuating between moments of hallucinations to clear lucid strong messages, expressing her desires of Yasin to be cared for and brought up within their tight family with only memories of joy and happiness.

Whilst I sat trying to control the tears that were rolling down my face, not only did I feel the sadness for Patricia trying to fight for her life, for the life that she’d so desperately wished for and had in her hands for such a short period of time, but I’m sitting here watching it with Rashid. Her husband who is now left to care for their child after loosing the love of his life. To care for a beautiful child Yasin who is a spitting image of his mum, a reminder on a daily basis of her presence. A man that has all these memories, these pictures and videos that he’s watching knowing how happy they once were and that he will never see or feel that happiness again.

If there was something we could do to bring Patricia back for Rashid, Yasin and their family, I would do it in a flash, but instead the only way we can help, is by keeping her memory and story alive.

By making this row a success, it gives a platform to share this story and many others that Breast Cancer Care provide the support for. This row is not about us, it is about those women & families that have had to face and fight adversity but don’t get a chance for their voice to be heard.

‘Live and laugh every day, spend time with your family and love your family, live with nothing left un-said or undone, knowing that if today was your last there would be no regrets.’ Patricia Elouahabi