In September 2004 Clare's sister's then boyfriend, Matt Julians (aka Floyd London, bass player for The Almighty) was diagnosed with Acute Myeloid Leukaemia.

To quote Sophie :

"His type of AML was quite rare (1:70,000) and he was treated with 4 courses of aggressive chemotherapy. Unfortunately a bone marrow biopsy was out of the question as the procedure alone carried a 40% mortality rate. Floyd's chances of successfully beating the cancer are 50/50 but he still made it to remission after the first course of chemo, and he's still there now!!! We have another 4 years to get through before we can say he made it! Floyd is a tough wee lad and we know he's going to beat this leukaemia."

Floyd went into remission at the end of October 2004 and they got married in June 2005. He will never be given the 'all clear' as unfortunately you cannot be when it comes to leukaemia. The chemo treatment along with his cytogenetics mean that he is a moderate risk of relapse or secondary leukaemia in years to come. But it wont's stop us marking his 5 year remission anniversary in 2009!

Clare had an idea of auctioning quilts for Leukaemia Research, but we couldn’t hit upon a way of auctioning them, except through a certain internet auction site and we didn’t quite like that idea.

So we changed the position of the goal posts and Clare put out a plea for red and white blocks (representing blood cells) and the blocks came flooding in from all over the world.  We now have well over 100 which  Clare makes up into quilts and sends to children worldwide.

What gave Clare the idea?

Watching Floyd and Sophie go to hell and back and wanting to do something to help them help others.

Hello friends,

This is just a quick '4 years on' update on Floyd.  Yes, tomorrow, 24th September will be 4 years since Floyd was diagnosed with leukaemia and given his 50/50 prognosis!  Because we are so very happy to see these annual anniversaries pass, we just have to let the world know and remind you all how very grateful we still are for all the support and encouragement you gave us through that awful time.

Floyd is still as fit as a fiddle (annoyingly so!), mad a box of frogs and generally living life to the full, every single day.  Check ups at the hospital are now every 8 months.  We still pop in to see our friends on the ward there and to give them any spare TV sets we come across as we remember the room-to-room bickering over who gets to borrow the only working set that week!!! (it's true!).

We have been having a lovely time just getting on with life and things are very much back to normal.  Floyd treated himself to a Harley Davidson a few months ago and blamed everything from the cancer to a mid-life crisis but the bike is very special and looks fantastic.

We still stick very closely to Leukaemia Research and just cannot sing the praises of the charity enough,  for all they do to help find a cure and the prevention of one of the worst forms of cancer we've ever known.  They have shown us so much support too and we are very proud of them all!

That's it!  Just wanted you all to know we are still around and grinning like idiots to see this 4 year marker go past us!

Much love,

Sophie & Floyd 
xx