Thanks for taking the time to visit my JustGiving page.

Hi all! My name is Ben. I am no super athlete. I love a good Chinese takeaway and try to ignore the number on the bathroom scales. I am just an ordinary guy and this is my extraordinary journey.

But now let's talk about a family friend of mine. She is 5 years old, a HUGE football fan, regularly attending games and wears her Manchester United kit with pride! 

She suffers from a condition called Nephrotic Syndrome. You'd be forgiven if you have never heard of this before, I certainly hadn't before I met her. It is a rare but seriously debilitating kidney condition. In essence, it is usually where the clusters of glomeruli of the kidneys are damaged, or not working properly, causing your body to leak too much blood protein into your urine and leave the body. The condition can affect children and adult alike but the vast majority of sufferers are children. The treatment for this condition is non specific and highly toxic to the body. A course of steroids are usually the first stop but whether they work or not they can only ever be in the short term. The attempts at treatment for Nephrotic Syndrome are a series of trial and error ways of trying to manage and prevent relapses, these come with a string of life threatening risks and complications. Sadly this is a battle not all of our Nephrotic warriors win.

When it comes to our friend, she has a supressed immune system at the best of times due to medication, however during times of relapse she has almost no immune system at all. Making everyday infections a serious threat to her. Particularly scary during the last few years with this pandemic you may have heard about... she is currently managing her condition with daily administering of a medicine called mycophenolate mofetil (MMF). This is one of the medicines that make up chemotherapy treatment for cancer patients. Luckily for her, this is working at the moment, but for thousands this doesn't, and even though it is for her just now, that doesn't mean it always will and her body could reject this and be right back in relapse at any point! This provides high risk of infection and serious blood clots to name just a few dangers. Sufferers could end up looking at transplant or dialysis options, or sadly worse.

NeST is a wonderful charity that work tirelessly sourcing funds to support the team at Bristol Renal, working out of the University of Bristol, who are researching into finding a cure against this vile condition. I will do whatever I can to support NeST in this effort, supporting her and every other sufferer out there in the process!

Now back to me!

Some of you visiting may have been to my pages before. In July 2021 I completed the National 3 Peaks Challenge, raising just over £1,000 for NeST. This was a great achievement following fantastic support from all of you! But it left a taste in my mouth. How could I do more to raise awareness and support this charity. How could I go bigger?!

And so I went into research and found one hell of a beefy challenge! And the idea of completing the Seven Summits Challenge was born. The seven summits challenge is a serious mountaineering challenge of climbing to the highest peak on each of the 7 Continents. These being Mount Elbrus (Europe), Mount Kilimanjaro (Africa), Denali (North America), Mount Vinson (Antarctica), Puncak Jaya (Oceania) and of course the mother of all, Mount Everest (Asia).

To put this challenge into some perspective, as of last count in 2016 only 416 people have been recorded as achieving this feat, out of 7.9 billion people on the planet. Of course, now in 2023 that number will be greater but it gives an idea of what actually lay ahead! These are terrains that test human resolve to their very limit and I invite you all along on this journey with me! 

It is also important for me to point out the charity themselves will be providing no funds towards this challenge. I know many of these fundraising events will exercise what is called a minimum pledge option. Whereby the charity pays the fee for the participant (me) to complete the challenge, providing they can raise enough funds in excess of a target the charity set. Meaning the charity, in effect, keeps half of the money you raise and uses the other half to pay for the event. I do not want to use this option. Every penny you donate goes directly to the charity and stays with them! These climbs, this entire challenge, will be funded by a mixture of my own money and (hopefully) forms of corporate sponsors along the way!

Thank you for taking the time to read my story, and thank you for all and any support you show! Whether that be by donating, sharing my story and my posts, engaging with the event through social media or by watching and liking my video blogs and posts I make during each climb. Anything and everything you do helps us cast our net wider and do that little bit more.

Thank you all.

Ben