Welcome to my justgiving page. I'm running the Cheltenham Half Marathon because I hate heart disease. When I was little a parent of a girl in my class at school had heart disease. I was told it was because he smoked to much and drunk too much, which was king of logical, you drink too much and smoke too much things are gonna go wrong aren't they. And that was heart disease, or so I thought......

 

....Until Heart Disease decided to take away my baby cousin on New Years Day. Emma had never done anything to contribute to getting heart disease. My aunt and uncle were fit and healthy and then lived in a 'dry' country at the time. How was that fair? The hurt and pain my uncle and aunt went through is not something anyone should have to endure. 

 

Then heart disease decided to attack my brothers friend. He was about to go and play in the under 19 World Cup of Cricket in New Zealand. All the players had a heart scan before they went and it revealed a serious heart defect. It destroyed his World Cup ambitions, but at least it meant the condition was detected. It turned out other members of his family had the same condition and also required major surgery. Whilst it did not seem like it for Calum at the time, he was lucky, the scanning that was available to him, is not something that young people get routinely. I'd like to raise money to change that.

 

Whilst the above two people had a profound effect on me, my biggest motivation for running a half marathon less than ten months after giving birth is my little boy. Edward has a condition called Tetralogy of Fallot. Basically his heart doesn't work properly as his pulmonary artery is too small and there is a hole in his heart. He needs open heart surgery or the long and short of it is there is a 30% chance he won't make his first birthday, and he certainly would not make it to his teens. How the bloody hell is that fair? 

 

Fortunately Edwards condition has been detected, he will have surgery, major surgery, open heart surgery it will be stressful, scary, and he may well need more when he's older but hopefully due to research by the BHF it will be ok. 

 

In the scary white relatives room in the hospital when they told us about Edward's condition (you know the one, you've seen it on casualty, I knew the moment we were shown into that room there was a problem) in a sea of confusing information we were given a small leaflet from the British Heart Foundation that explained everything simply. I didn't take it in at the time but it was invaluable afterwards.

 

 I want to make sure the money is there for anyone who needs a leaflet like that to get one. I want better scanning available for young people to detect and fix more heart defects. I want better scanning of unborn babies to ensure conditions are picked up before birth so babies can be born with the necessary support as happened to me. I want me little boy to be healthy. And if he can go through major surgery and I can sure as hell drag my ass round 13.1 miles and I hope you might be think about sponsoring me a little bit. 

 

Thank you