Silver Lining
I am one of
the ambassadors for the King’s Silver Lining Appeal. It’s for updating
equipment at King’s College Hospital in London. It’s where I’ve had all my
operations. On the launch night of the appeal which was May 11th 2004, Mum and
Dad and I drove to Dulwich. Linda Barker was the star guest and Marvin from Millwall Football Club was there, giving out presents to
the ambassadors. There were about 15 of us. We were given special badges. The
logo for the appeal is a rainbow going into a cloud. They have a webpage here http://www.kingsch.nhs.uk/about/silver_lining.asp.
I raised £300
for the Silver Lining Appeal in September 2004. They phoned Mum to invite us to
the Christmas Party and asked her what my favourite bands were. Mum said Blue
and they told her not to tell me but they might be able to get someone from
Blue to meet me at the party to say, thank you. I went to the party on December
20th, totally clueless. We watched a pantomime but before it ended, Mum took me
outside. We went into the corridor and we were talking to someone from the
appeal when she said, ‘Someone wants to meet you. He’ll be here in a minute.’ I
thought it was my surgeon, Chris Chandler, so I just sat there. The next
minute, people came round the corner and a voice said, ‘Hi, it’s Anthony
Costa.’ It was the first time I’ve ever been gob smacked! I couldn’t talk. I
just kept thinking of my nose. I’d had it pierced but I’d taken the stud out
two days before; plus Anthony was standing on the same side as my scabby nose!
He was really, really nice and gave me some signed Blue stuff. He went into the
room after meeting me, to see the other children. Soon the room was filling up
with nurses who had heard he was in the hospital. He had to go then but said,
bye, to me before he went. Blue have now split up and I’m gutted! But they’re
doing their solo stuff now, so it’s O.K!
I am
trying to raise £30,000 to build a neuro-rehabilatation room on
Lion Ward where I recovered after my operations and brain haemorrhage.
The room will be named after me if I can raise the money needed. Here is some
info on what the room will do. For more details about Lion Ward, and The Silver
Lining Appeal, please visit my fundraising page on my website.