Where are we at?……

Hi, Lisa here from Team Hippo. Just updating you all on how things are going!

It’s been a crazy few weeks at Team Hippo HQ. Myself and Team Hippo Mascot (Hypo Hippo) completed the Mablethorpe Half Marathon in 2hrs27mins. We raised enough money to illustrate nearly all the pages of Hypospadias Hippopotamus.
The charity ‘Team Hippo’ is up and running, all the paperwork is now complete and we can start to move things forward.

Our next fundraising event is the Children’s Christmas Wonderland in Lincolnshire, England. This is keeping me extremely busy and is growing by the day. We hope that after this event we will be very close to having enough funds to publish and print the book, I can’t wait!!

The Take a Break article has also been published in the UK and had an amazing response. So many lovely comments and kind words. It has shown there is a need for some kind of support network for both parents and patients, which is why Team Hippo will in the future be so important.

Not a rare condition

Just wanted to clear up that hypospadias is not a rare condition, it affects 1 in every 350 baby boys which makes it fairly common.

Half Marathon Fundraising challenge….

It’s now less than two weeks until the dreaded Mablethorpe Half Marathon. Training has been going well although a little tough. The weather has changed and is lovely and sunny, but this makes training tough as they heat is proving a challenge. I’m sure we will get round and raise lots of pennies for the charity. If you happen to be in Mablethorpe, pop along and give Team Hippo a shout, you won’t be able to miss the tired, red faced lady with ‘running for team hippo’ on her t-shirt and the a team hippo mascot running next to her.

The awareness campaign is going great, we couldn’t be happier that people are becoming aware of the congenital condition.

We also have our joint fundraiser planned for December. The children’s winter wonderland event, raising funds for team hippo and sands. I will attach a copy of our poster for the event for you all to see!

The Take a Break article should be in next Thursdays edition so don’t forget to have a read, I’m really looking forward to seeing it, hope its good!!

All in all an exciting few weeks for team hippo! hypospadias hippopotamus and the awareness campaign.

Hope all the little hippos having surgery this week are doing well, keep smiling kids!!!

Team Hippo The Charity

So we have been busy working on setting up the charity, bank account, registering with HMRC etc etc. I wanted to take some time to post about our current situation and also the aim of the charity.

Why did we set up Team Hippo as a charity?

We made the decision to set up the charity as we need to raise the funds to Illustrate, publish and print the book. In order to raise the funds we will be doing fundraising events, our first being Lisa running a half marathon in October, an online charity auction in Nov and Wet Will-E pre filled water balloons in the US are running Team Hippo month in December where they will walk, run and cycle as much as possible to raise money for Team Hippo. In order for donors to donate and give gift aid, we need to be a charity/not for profit organisation.

What do we hope to achieve?

Our initial goal is to publish the book so that children can enjoy the story and understand there condition and recovery road. If fundraising and sponsorship goes well, we would like to be able to set up some form of support network for families, carers etc. Also, to set up a program that gives talks to teachers, nursery workers, social workers anyone that has contact with children, about the condition and its physical/emotional impact on family life.

The charity will support and help people/families worldwide and we welcome any help. We would love to hear fundraising ideas, potential sponsorship and ideas to expand the charity.

If anyone has any questions about Team Hippo, please don’t hesitate to contact us.

All good news for Team Hippo this week…….

Another amazing week for Team Hippo.  Lisa has been looking into setting up the charity ‘Team Hippo’ and everything looks great.  The new logo is created and will share with you all as we are very proud of the end product.

So many of you have been asking when the book will be available, so the time has come to start trying to raise some funds to bring an illustrator on board.  Lisa has signed up to run a Half Marathon to try and raise some pennies.  Lisa is not a runner and the furthest she has achieved is 10k so the half marathon is looking very scary.

We have had some amazing support from companies this week who have offered to assist Team Hippo in there own unique ways, which is delightful and we will be sure to name them all in time.

Remember to follow us on facebook and twitter to keep up to date with our latest news!

Enjoy your weekend 🙂

 

Back from a break, time to get Team Hippo moving…

Back from a lovely family break, feeding cheetahs, stroking zebra and hippo feeding were but a few of our amazing encounters.

Whilst away I have been emailed the logo for Team Hippo which I wanted to put on emails etc when promoting the book and raising awareness of the condition.  I have requested a few small changes to make it more child friendly but I think you will all like it.

Amy has heard back from Parents Canada magazine and that is looking positive for an article on hypospadias.  Don’t forget the Take a Break article will be out in 4 weeks in the UK and I for one can’t wait to see it.

Ben has had a little set back as the tummy aches have returned and his flow seems very slow, so I’m keeping an extra eye on him to see if things improve.

Im excited about throwing myself into the campaign over the next few weeks, and with kids back at school and some sort of routine back.

Update you all soon, keep following Team Hippo!

The book is written…

Hi everyone, hope you are all well.

Amy and I have finally finished the text for the book and we are both delighted.  It will go to the illustrator this week and we are excited to start seeing it come together.

Team Hippo has had a great week.  We are now on twitter @TeamHypoHippo so please have a look and follow us.  We have some great followers and hope to gain many more. Amy has been busy promoting hypospadias and the book online, so we will keep you posted on new articles.

All in all a great week.  

Twitter

New twitter page guy’s………….TeamHypoHippo x

Team Hippo’s Success keeps rising….

What a great week for Team Hippo.  We now have a date for the UK Take a Break magazine article, this will be published the first week of October, so please have a look.  It not only has my story but also talks about the condition which is great publicity.  The Facebook page has gone over it’s 100 likes which again is a huge success.  Obviously it is early days but if everyone shares the page we will of course reach more people in our awareness quest.  The blog is going from strength the strength and has now had over 1200 hits worldwide since we started.  Social media is really helping with the campaign and I have got some advice on how best to use Twitter (as I’m not that up to speed) so watch this space for ‘Tweets’, coming soon.

Obviously it is the summer so both myself and Amy have been busy with vacations and children so haven’t been able to put a lot of time into Team Hippo in the past month, but we can be sure that in the next few weeks we will be back to it and hopefully have lots of exciting news to post.

Again, we both do this in our spare time and as it continues to grow is getting more demanding, so if anyone else feels they are able to offer there skills/time no matter how small, please get in touch.

Enjoy the sunshine.

Lisa – Team Hippo 🙂

Private consultation or not?

Well what a busy few day’s for Team Hippo. The new Facebook Page is up and running and already a great success, and the blog has reached well over the 1000 hits we set out for, amazing!!

Through the blog I have met some amazing mummies who have very kindly shared there stories with me, but has got me thinking about my gorgeous Benjamin.
Benjamin has Penoscrotal hypospadias with chordee and bifid scrotum. The hypospadias repair has been done but not yet successful, but our surgeon has not fixed anything else yet. Is this normal? We were told that the bifid scrotum is only cosmetic and can be done at a later date. Now after hearing other people’s stories, I’m starting to think about seeking a consultation from a private surgeon.

I did ask at our last appointment if the bifid scrotum operation could be carried out on it’s own to try and make Ben feel more ‘normal’, as this was one area he was distressed about. But our surgeon said he would prefer not to put Ben under just for the small operation. (which I do understand).
We were also told that there is no guarantee with this surgery. The scaring could still be visable and the pull in the scrotum could still rise back up, resulting in a look similar to the current one.

So I’m back at the crossroads that all us parents hate, trying to decide what is best for my little one.
If anyone in the UK has any advice or suggestions on surgeons, please get in touch.
I know of a few boy’s who were having surgery this week, I hope it has gone well for all of you and your recovering well.

Lisa – Team Hippos.