Chris’s Story

Chris Hudson successfully completed a marathon (that’s 42kms!) in 2017’s Chevron City to Surf and raised an incredible total of over $9,000 for Perth Children’s Hospital Foundation.

We are very grateful for Chris’s amazing support, and spoke to him about his very special reason for challenging himself mentally and physically (for 5 hours, 1 minute and 50 seconds) as well as why he chose to raise funds for the Foundation.

Chris running the marathon in the 2017 Chevron City to Surf

Even before he ran, he called signing up for the marathon ‘an incredibly stupid thing’ but then gave some ‘extremely good reasons’ as to why he was determined to do it.

Not a natural athlete, with a self-admitted ‘long history of eating and drinking too much, and exercising too little’, Chris decided to turn things around and trained for 20 weeks to prepare for the 42km challenge.

His first reason was that in addition to being mindful of his health, he was about to turn 40, and joked, ‘I am in the middle of a serious mid-life crisis and need to prove to myself I am still young! And no – I can’t just buy a sports car – wife wouldn’t go for it!’

His other reason was to raise awareness and money for Perth Children’s Hospital Foundation, and more specifically for the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit.

Chris and his wife Julie had a special reason for this decision to support the Foundation and this is the wording that Chris sent to his friends and family explaining why their support was so important:

Why Perth Children’s Hospital Foundation?

 

In 2015, our son Callum spent almost his entire life at Princess Margaret Hospital (PMH). He suffered, as many do, from a truly unfair incurable and tragic phenomena… Bad Luck!

 

Or in our case… a chronic Foetal Maternal Haemorrhage. Google it if you wish to know more, but basically it effects about 1 in 5,000 babies randomly, sometimes has no identifiable cause and is in practise quite undetectable… until it’s too late. Chronic cases (if they survive birth) end up at PMH, in Neonatal Intensive Care… Ward 6B.

 

PMH is a brilliant organisation full of saints and heroes who help make damaged lives better! While the significant medical bills associated with intensive care are covered by government or private health insurance, much of the social support (from which my family benefited hugely) is reliant of donations.

 

Enter the Perth Children’s Hospital Foundation.

Donating to the cause will not help me or Callum, but it will help the next poor little unfortunate who will be living in the Neonatal Intensive Care. This is in honour of Callum’s Memory.

You can’t cure BAD LUCK – but you can help those who suffer from it!

This is a powerful reason and these powerful words. We continue to be blown away by Chris’s commitment to his fundraising, which meant that over $9,000 was directed to the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit.

We may now be in a new hospital, but the need for financial support through fundraising and donations is still urgent. How can you help?

You can register as an individual or get a team together and take part in this year’s Chevron City to Surf and raise funds for the Foundation. Find out more below:

You can also make a donation to the Foundation directly here

Thank you to Chris for sharing his story, and thank you for your support.