Thanks for taking the time to visit my JustGiving page.

In 2007 my wife Julie and I had been married for 11 years, and with our gorgeous 7 year old son, life seemed good. I had a well-paid job, a great house and a strong family. Sadly, things were about to change. My wife discovered a lump in her chest; we took her for investigations and discovered it was breast cancer. We kept positive, thinking all we had to do was get through surgery and some chemotherapy and try and get past this – unfortunately, during our first visit to have chemotherapy we were told that the cancer had spread and was incurable.

My wife fought this disease bravely over the course of the next 7 years – against serious diversity, many visits to the hospital and St Michaels Hospice, the local care and respite centre, and with the support of my son and I she outlived her prognosis by 4 years.

Sadly, earlier this year she lost her fight. It’s been a tough time since coming to terms with our loss, and I don’t think we’ll ever really get over it – but I’ve been looking for ways to improve my life. One of the strongest lessons I learnt over the course of the past 7 years not only is how essential and undervalued our health system and support systems are, but also how much we need to care and look after each other.

I am honoured to have been picked as one of the 5 representatives of Destination Basingstoke in conjunction with St Michaels Hospice to run the Basingstoke Half Marathon this year, an event which will have a significant poignancy for me as this year it falls on the 5th October, which would have been our 18th wedding anniversary.

I am nervous about this, and am unsure as to whether I will be able to run the full challenging course, but I will cross that line even if I am crawling across. I can't think of a better way to honour my wife's memory.

I would love you all to motivate and support me in this venture, by helping me raise as much money as we can for St Michaels Hospice, a centre without which I am sure Julie, Christopher and I would have not been able to continue to fight as long as we did.

Please donate any amount you can - every penny counts.

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