I have entered the ballot for the London Marsthon so many times and this year I have been accepted! I have chosen to run for Farleigh Hospice as their charity helped my family and I during a very difficult time in our lives.

My Dad was an avid West Ham supporter with us both having season tickets to watch all the games that we could, he was also the manager of my local football team so our whole weekends were taken up with football. In 2008 my Dad got diagnosed with stage 4 lung cancer and despite treatment the cancer spread to his brain. I was only 13 at the time and Dad becoming ill was a huge change to all of our lives.

Farleigh Hospice provided the whole family with emotional support, we were given an allocated Farleigh Macmillan nurse called Sally who took her time to visit us and get to know us as a family. This support was catered to all of our individual needs, Sally supported us from the diagnosis, through Dad’s treatment and then continued once Dad had sadly passed 10 months after his diagnosis. Farleigh Hospice helped us to keep my Dad where he wanted to be, at home, they helped us to get a bed and oxygen and to transform our dining room into Dad’s bedroom as he found walking up the stairs very difficult. 

The best thing for my Dad was when they organised a mobility scooter for him, at 44 this was not what he imagined but in his own words “it gave me a purpose again, I was useful”. Sally and the charity really helped us to come to terms with the changes that were happening in our lives and continued to support us for as long  as we needed, it was nice to have a familiar friendly face that knew exactly what we was going through and allowed us to talk to her about things that family members would have been upset by. My family and I can never completely show our gratitude for the help that they gave us, however I can help in my own way which is to complete this challenge and raise as much money as I can for the charity in memory of my Dad, Martin Gould.

So please donate as much as you can to this amazing cause and hopefully the money can go towards another family getting the help and support that they need like we did. 

Farleigh Hospice is a registered charity (no. 284670) which provides hospice care to people affected by life-limiting illnesses across mid Essex.They help patients to live as actively as possible from the point of diagnosis to the end of their life, by providing physical and emotional care, free of charge.With approximately 40% of their yearly running costs being funded by the local NHS, they rely on the support and goodwill of the local mid Essex community to contribute to the £16,039 it costs to provide their services each day.