In 2017 my wife gave birth to our beautiful baby girl Eleanor, I turned 30, we celebrated our third wedding anniversary and I was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis.  

I tried my hardest for over a year to ignore my diagnosis.

I am now at a place where I feel comfortable to talk about my MS and want to help raise awareness about this life changing condition.

I am also hoping to change the initial perception of MS.  When I was diagnosed my first thought was that my condition is only going to get progressively worse and it's just a matter of time before it has a greater impact on my day to day life.  Therefore I am fulfilling a lifetime ambition by running the London marathon and I am doing so for a charity that have provided invaluable support to both me and my family. 

I have always enjoyed running, in 2016  I run the Colchester half marathon for the MS Society in a time of 1:40:44, not knowing I would be diagnosed with the condition myself a year later.

I have applied for the London Marathon several times in the last 10 years via the ballot being unsuccessful every year.  On World MS day in 2020, which made it even more overwhelming, I was told that I have honour of running the London Marathon on behalf of MS UK.  I plan to utilise this opportunity and raise awareness of MS and the fantastic work MS UK have done with helping me come to terms with my diagnosis and the support they continue to provide to the MS community.

I was due to run the marathon in 2020 but for obvious reasons this has been delayed.  It's been a long time coming but I will be running 26 miles in October!

To show her support my wife Sasha will be running the Colchester half marathon in May 2022 to further help raise awareness.  It was only 18 months ago she gave birth to our little boy Jack.

There is no cure for MS but I am on a course of disease modifying therapy which is taken in the hope that it slows the  progression of relapses and symptoms.  

MS is a condition that affects the central nervous system – the brain and spinal cord. There is currently no cure. The symptoms people experience vary greatly from person to person and over time. Such symptoms may include fatigue, pain, sensory problems such as with vision, cognition difficulties and issues with bodily functions such as speech and swallowing and bladder and bowel. 

Just as there is no cure, there is also no definitive understanding of the cause of MS. This means that there is no consensus around how to treat or manage MS, doubling the uncertainty in people’s lives and those around them. This is why MS-UK has always been at the forefront of promoting choice, of providing people with all the information and support they need to live life as they wish to with multiple sclerosis; whether that be through drugs, complementary therapies, lifestyle changes, a mixture of these or none at all.

MS-UK is a national charity based in Colchester which supports anyone affected by multiple sclerosis – that’s around 107,000 people in the UK and 2.3 million people worldwide.

MS-UK’s services include a help-line, telephone counselling service, a bi-monthly magazine for the MS Community and a Wellness Centre based in Colchester which supports local people with exercise programmes tailored to individual’s needs.

Thank you for taking the time to visit my Just Giving Page.  

If you have any questions please ask. Whether you would like to understand more about MS or if you have been diagnosed with a life changing condition, MS or otherwise and would like to talk, please get in touch.

Be kind, always,

John