Its fair to say that last year was the worst year of my life. 

What I thought was a little bit of food poisoning turned out to be a life threatening illness which had taken over me within 12 hours. Quite quickly I was transferred to intensive care and stayed there for 15 days as I’d lost most of my pancreas and was battling a pancreatic cyst that just wouldn't go away. 

In total I was in hospital for well over 4 months recovering, it took over 5 operations to correct all the problems I had, along with 3 blood transfusions. Numerous CT, MRI and X-rays. 

I’m now on the road to recovery albeit leading a very different life these days.

I’ll never be able to repay my debt to Mr Monkhouse, his team and all the nursing support staff at East Surrey Hospital but by doing this run I hope it will go a long way to helping this amazing hospital that saved my life on so many occasions. If I’ve learned anything from this, it’s that the NHS staff are an amazing bunch of people who never give up on you even when you’ve given up on yourself.

Anyone who knows me would tell you that running is well out of my comfort zone and you’d only ever see me running in an airport to catch a flight let alone 10k. It will take a lot of effort to get me into shape and with the now added problems of making sure my diabetes is under control ready for the run. 

Please please donate anything you can, even £1 to help this amazing hospital every penny does count. Seeing your donations will help spur me on to the finish line! 

Thank you 

Darren x