With great sadness, I’m sure you all will be aware by now, my brother, James Rooney passed away on Friday 29th September. 

As a family we have set this JustGiving page up to raise awareness and funds into more research of this horrible disease that took the life of our James. 

James was definitely one of a kind. I’m sure we all have our different crazy stories of James and what he used to get up to, but, the one thing I think we can all agree on is how much love he had for his two daughters and his family. I know that we will all miss him so dearly.

Behçet’s is a rare condition that causes chronic inflammation and/or swelling within the body’s blood vessels. With James never doing anything by halves, the type of Behçets James had was the neurological side, which in typical James fashion, he had to have one of the rarer and most severe types of his condition. This condition affected his brain which caused him to have multiple strokes which lead to James being brain damaged. Unfortunately the more strokes James had, even with all the medical interventions, James’ brain wasn’t able to take anymore. 

James is the first and only person to have this severe form of Neuro Behçets in the Royal Berkshire Hospital, to which, the consultants that have looked after James during all his treatment have decided to recognise his legacy and have started to call this condition JRS (James Rooney Syndrome). 

We would like to ask you ahead of James’ funeral and even after, that instead of bringing flowers, can you please make a donation, however much you can afford to, to hopefully help and save a life of someone else with this rare condition. 

As a family, we would like to also take this time to thank all of his friends, extended family members and everyone else who reached out, for all their messages, love and thoughts during this most difficult time.