Thank you for coming to my page.

I am running the 2023 London Marathon for the Motor Neurone Disease Association.

You probably know this but my mum died from MND in April of 2014 and if you knew her before the 2 years preceding her death, you would also know she was a family court judge. She loved her job because she got to talk all day and everyone had to listen. She was respected and she believed her work to be meaningful. But what she loved most was talking on the phone, socialising with friends and drinking wine, not in that order!

Unfortunately in early 2012 that was not to last. She began slurring her words which ultimately progressed, or regressed, to her losing her speech. She was relegated to writing as a form of communication. Along with the difficulty of speaking, her throat could not perform peristalsis, the process of your muscles moving food down your gullet in a wave-like pattern. She would often choke on food and someone would have to shove a medical hoover down her throat to retrieve any sustenance. She was then relegated to having a peg installed on her belly button so that she could receive nutrients. She had been overweight for as long as I knew her but no more! However, throughout all this time she had not been given a diagnosis but by the time Christmas 2013 came around, we were told she had something along the lines of MND and that she was to eventually die. All hopes of her getting better were off the cards. 

On the 17th of April 2014, she died and there hasn't been a day since that I haven't thought about her. Even though my mum had to endure all the injustice of experiencing a premature, terrible, and debilitating disease that was to lead to her death, I knew that wasn't the worst thing for her. She was leaving her two boys that as hard as she tried, she could no longer smother them with her instinctual maternal love. She could no longer be there for them.

So if not that thousands of people every year die from this terrible disease, there are mutiple more thousands of Jacobs who survive their loved one. 

And if you still need convincing, it turned me into a monumental arsehole so at least you can spare the world of more people like myself. 

Every pound counts!

Check out the letter she wrote for the MND association back in 2014 - http://writelikeahumanbeing.com/new-page

Thanks