Hello, I'm running the London Marathon for Kidney Care UK hopefully the words below will persuade you it's worth a bit of your time and money. 

On the 14th of August 2018 I was given a very special gift from a family I don't even know.  I was lucky enough to get a second chance at living a full life, I was lucky enough to receive a new kidney.   That's the headline, that's the WOW story, that's the part of the story where people say,  'Oh you'd never know, don't you look great, well done'.  And, for the record I do feel amazing, the lights have been switched on and I'm plugging away at life with a smile on my face, thankful of every day I have back, I'm very lucky.

In all honesty the transplant was the easy part. The hard part, the part that nobody really saw, or really understood was I'd been living for a number of years under the cloud of kidney failure, living with the knowledge that I would, one day, need medical intervention to survive on a day to day basis.  For me, it was like standing in front of a slow moving bus with my feet glued to the floor, not being able to use an ounce of my resources to do a dam thing about it hitting me.  Slowly bit by bit I began to feel really poorly but I looked OK, nobody really could see inside that I was in pain or having a really bad day, because I didn't look ill. That's the rub with kidney failure, it strips you back a little every day until you can't really put your finger on why you can't remember that word you need; you're feeling exhausted all the time; you can't understand why you feel cold to your bones even though it 20°c; or get used to living with a constant head ache... But because it happened to me slowly nobody really noticed that you're hurting a bit more everyday. And you're still expected to function normally and do what you've done for years and years. 

I'll be honest, I got to a really dark place, I'd started home Dialysis and I found myself being consumed into a hole that I was struggling to climb out of.  People I've known for years were moving further and further away from me, not knowing how to connect and I was beginning to feel like this was all my fault and I'd done something wrong.  I started to look for help, but our beautiful NHS, who I owe so much to,  were struggling to find me the support I needed quickly so I reached out to Charity.  Kidney Care UK quickly arranged support, with a telephone councillor and paired me up with a wonderful lady called Jackie who I owe my sanity to. She helped me order things in my head, filter out the white noise and made me realise I'm not the only one, I just needed a little help to navigate the new rules of my life.

Strip back my kidney failure story and this is the same for lots of people slowly being left stranded from their own lives by a cruel illness. I've been given a second chance but lots of people are not as lucky as me, they spend years on dialysis or waiting for a transplant, I'm running the London Marathon for them in the hope that I give somebody a little inspiration to feel their treatment will improve or that their call will come.   The work Kidney Care UK do is vital, hopefully the small amount I raise will keep people like Jackie in a job to help others like me. 

But I'm running the London Marathon because I made a promise to the family I first mentioned, the one I don't even know.  I promised to respect my precious gift by living everyday to the full while I can. This is my gift to her memory. x 

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