*** update 

Unfortunately Fionn has had to drop out of the race due to health reasons. My lovely sister Naomi has taken his spot and will be my pacemaker throughout the race!!

Thanks for taking the time to visit our JustGiving page.

Living with Diabetes is hard! Living with someone who is living with diabetes is also hard! To be completely honest there isn't anything easy about the incurable, invisible disease. 

Fionn was diagnosed with Type One diabetes the week before his 17th Birthday. He didn't do anything to provoke it. In fact, he was the healthiest he'd ever been. His pancreas just decided to pack it in for good one day and nothing was ever the same again.                      

Keep reading for a very brief explanation of what and how the whole diabetes thing works below.

A normal healthy person eats food. That food is then digested in their stomach. All food and drink contains a certain amount of sugar. When the food is digested a person's pancreas releases insulin. The insulin then turns the sugar into energy and the energy then powers that person's entire body... A type one diabetic's pancreas exists but doesn't work. That means without insulin their sugar levels will go up and up and up and up and up and... you understand. Long-term side effects of prolonged high sugar levels are amputation, blindness, liver failure, ketosis, and even death (just to name the big ones). A Type One diabetic instead has to administer their own insulin via injection (up to 13 injections a day for Fionn). It's basically a huge balancing game. If Fionn calculates a food's sugar contents wrong and administers too much or too little insulin he very quickly ends up with very high or very low blood sugar. Low blood sugar is the scary and dangerous one. A healthy diabetic experiences around 4 Hypoglycemic episodes (Lows) a week. If left untreated low blood sugar leaves the diabetic unconscious, in a coma, or at worst dead. 

It's all a bit scary at times and is a constant balancing game for those living with Type one Diabetes. The pressures diabetes applies to everyday life are often felt just as much by those living alongside a diabetic.

That's why we have picked JDRF as our charity for the London Landmarks Half Marathon. JDRF are the ones pushing for a world without Type One Diabetes. They drive research to cure, treat and prevent Type One Diabetes. They accelerate access to Type One treatment technologies and medicines and find practical ways to support those already living with the illness.

Thanks for reading and donating!

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.