After the unprecedented events that 2020 threw at all of us unfortunately the organisers of the Great North Run had to cancel the event. Hopefully this year the run will go ahead and I can take part and achieve a (slightly) quicker goal than last year!

All of last year's donations still went to Steps; but if you could sponsor me again it would be greatly appreciated.

The Great North Run is a half marathon (13.1 miles) and will take place on 12th September 2021.

Please see our family's story below:

As some of you will already know when Esther was born we found out her hips were clicking. After taking to the hospital we found out she had hip dysplasia - which means the ball and socket part of her hip had not formed properly.

Esther went into a Pavlik harness at 3 weeks old. Babies still have soft bones and using the harness these are held in place to try and get the socket to form correctly around the thigh bone.

As Esther had the condition in both of her hips unfortunately this treatment was not successful; this meant she had to undergo surgery shortly after turning a year old.

The build up to the operation (open reduction of the hip) was bitter sweet. It was good to feel like we were moving towards a point of getting things sorted, but awful to think that just as Esther was starting to stand and taking her first steps she was going to end up with the lower half of her body in full cast. Needless to say I gritted my teeth and buried  my head in the sand not really thinking about the consequences of the surgery.

Although a very hard day for us all the surgery went well and after a few nights in hospital Esther was ready to come home - we very quickly realised that because of the cast on both of her legs we had no way of getting her into a normal car seat or home from Hull!

The staff at Hull Royal Infirmary recommended that we get in touch with Steps as they might be able to help us out. A quick call later and we had a specially modified car seat being delivered to us the next day for a small nominal fee - an more importantly a way to get Esther home safely to Scarborough.

The next 14 weeks were by no means easy; but having the car seat from Steps meant we could at least get on with normal life.

We are now 5 years past the surgery and Esther is pretty much fully recovered, discharged from hospital care (October 2019) and free to be the fun loving, funny, annoying and cheeky little girl she is.

Thank you for taking the time to visit my JustGiving page and please can you donate some money to this fantastic charity to help other families have the opportunity to get on with normal life when dealing with hip dysplasia and other childhood lower limb conditions.

Donating through JustGiving is simple, fast and totally secure. Your details are safe with JustGiving - they'll never sell them on or send unwanted emails. Once you donate, they'll send your money directly to the charity. So it's the most efficient way to donate - saving time and cutting costs for the charity.