Yesterday, 1st March, was Big Yellow Friday. A day when the Children’s Liver Disease Foundation (CLDF) ramp up their programme of fundraising and awareness raising. Supporters wearing yellow in various guises, baking yellow cakes for sale, sponsored dish washing in those fashionable yellow rubber gloves. It even coincided with St. David’s Day this year adding something else to the waving of yellow daffodils.
Yellow? Simple. Jaundice is when your skin or the whites of your eyes begin to show tinges of yellow. It can be one of the early and developing symptoms that all is not well with a liver.
It was that sign of yellow in the whites of her eyes that took Lucia, the founder of Live Loudly Donate Proudly, to her local GP. He triggered a process of attention that led to an emergency liver transplant after acute liver failure. The yellowing of her eyes gave enough warning for Lucia to be in the heart of the hospital system before the crisis took hold. Well worth watching for the warnings of yellow…
After her second transplant, just over a year later, Big Yellow Friday was Lucia’s first fundraising venture, along with the enthusiastic support of her sister and their friends. It also helped her find her voice as she gave her first public, illustrated presentation on organ donation, aged 10. In years to come Lucia was a regular supporter, participant and speaker in CLDF events and conferences.
CLDF is a firm favourite of ours in Live Loudly Donate Proudly. It’s a fantastic organisation with a wealth of experience and resources to help children, young people, and their families weave their own ways through a world of new languages, big issues and complicated experiences. Packed with resources, from leaflets about baby jaundice and even a colour chart of a baby’s stools, to inspirational information packs for young people on how to manage an inclusive range of growing-up experiences alongside liver disease and transplants. More information packs for parents, for schools, and even for GPs. Blogs and newsletters for health professionals, and grant support for vital paediatric liver research.
CLDF offers direct, personal and group support for children and young people, through events, residentials, and programmes. ‘Talk, Tell, Transform’ was an excellent residential programme bringing young people together to share their experiences, learn from and support each other, and then through learning film-making skills, turn their stories into honest, moving, funny resources for others. (Youtube playlist of CLDF Talk Tell Transform ) That programme is temporarily parked, but Hive, a “Facebook-based social network created by young people exclusively for young people with a liver condition or transplant” continues to cater for 13-15 year-olds and Hive+ for 16 – 24 year olds.
In a few weeks time, CLDF is to merge with the British Liver Trust, becoming one larger organisation in the belief and hope that they will be better together, better for each other, stronger and more effective and resourceful for others.
So, on Big Yellow Friday, we raised a yellow bun and a daffodil for this excellent organisation that offers solid and creative support for those who, out of the blue, find the hint of yellow that plunges them into new and demanding worlds.
Well worth a day of extra attention – and its always a good day for any support you are willing to give… Thank you, CLDF…
