We have reached the moon! Our final grand TOTAL and is: £488,557,210
Over 200 Individuals: £182,474,842 37 Groups £306,082,368
A massive Thank you to everyone for your time and efforts and its over and out from Mission Control x
Reflections by one of our PICS Respiratory nurses
As a respiratory nurse I spend my working life assisting people who struggle on a daily basis with the very frightening limitations of breathlessness. The spiral of being breathless, getting scared, becoming less fit, leading to further breathlessness is very common and quite difficult to break. The phrase ‘use it or lose it’ is easy to say but difficult to do.
This is why ‘taking steps to the moon’ has been such a good project. The beginning premise was to get people moving more from their own starting point. By measuring something simple like your step count, it meant lots of people could be involved, and importantly, achieve at their level.
We chose the moon as a destination as we never really thought we would get there!!! But you proved us wrong.
There have been inspirational stories along the way. The youthful and strong have done marathons and epic adventures, but equally there have been epic adventures for others. The gentleman who in February could walk 200m is now walking 500m – more than once a day. He has not had a chest infection all spring.
We have the lady who hadn’t been out and so walked in her home, putting a photo of the moon at the end of the corridor. She got fitter and more confident and proved to herself that she is stronger than she thinks. As she is self-employed, she has been able to work a few more days each month AND has been out.
We have the lady who has lost 4 stone! Yes, 4stone – alongside the dietary input the step counting has helped her achieve her goal. And there are many other stories of getting together to walk and just feeling better. The group cohesion and the aspiration of a difficult goal has inspired all of us to be more mindful of our activity and the benefits of moving.
So we have reached our target – the atmosphere at the group walk where 40 got together to walk was very supportive and we enjoyed the camaraderie of a group event.
For me, it has ticked lots of boxes, not least getting my family all walking together. My mum has had a fit bit for her 79th birthday! And my patients have all enjoyed and benefitted too.
We have raised so much awareness and some money for both the BLF https://www.blf.org.uk and Dr Sovani’s Blood gas machine https://www.nottinghamhospitalscharity.org.uk and as we sit on the moon thinking about how we get home… someone said ‘what are we doing next?’…