Twelve years ago, I lost my darling husband  and best friend, Lawrence Matz, to pulmonary fibrosis at the too-young age of 58, just 2 years after diagnosis.

Pulmonary fibrosis is a progressive and debilitating lung disease that causes scarring of the lung, leading to breathing difficulties and reduced lung function. It mainly affects males over the age of 50, and 1 in 5 people have the gene that can give them pulmonary fibrosis so it is not as uncommon as one might think.

In 2012, Lawrence's close friend Peter Tenenbaum cycled 1000 miles from London to Barcelona to raise funds for Breathing Matters, a charity that Lawrence helped set up, researching into pulmonary fibrosis. Money raised funded the Lawrence Matz Clinical Research Fellow who went on to develop a pioneering cryoscopic lung biopsy service; a much needed alternative than obtaining diagnostic biopsies through surgery. This was a first in the UK and leveraged a further £300,000 for research in this area.

Peter vowed that, if a cure had not been found in 10 years, he would do another hare-brained cycle to help boost Breathing Matters’ research.  This October (a little later than planned due to the pandemic), he is cycling 1,135 miles from London to Valencia. 

At 74 years of age, he is more than a decade older and not as spritely as he was the first time and so this is a massive deal for him, but his determination is stronger than ever and he is on board with putting in the hundreds of miles training needed to get himself to Valencia. He is hoping that this will inspire donations in line with the amount of effort and training required to accomplish the journey.

Lawrence was blessed with so many dear friends and both Peter and I are hoping that this mammoth ride will raise some serious money towards this very deserving charity.  Thank you for digging deep to make a real difference and to keep Lawrence’s memory alive. It was Lawrence's greatest wish that nobody  should have to suffer what he went through with this horrific disease so please help me and Peter to make his dream come true.

To read more about Breathing Matters work, visit https://www.breathingmatters.co.uk/research/