Sarah Semmens
Not the Manchester marathon after all...
Fundraising for Vizsla Welfare
Story
On 3 April this year I will be running Manchester Marathon. I love running and I love competing. When I was diagnosed with a heart condition last year and I thought I would lose the ability to run it was a devastating blow. I seem to have gotten lucky, and after what we believe to have been a successful procedure last September I am - at least for now - very much back out running and have started competing again.
I wouldn’t claim to just be running the race for a charity. I run because I love running and I love competing, but I will also be attempting to raise both funds and awareness for HVWC along the way. There are lots of reasons why and I’ll probably waffle on about them at some point (several) over the coming few weeks, but one of them is personal.
I’ve fundraised for the Hungarian Vizsla Welfare Charity in the past but never expected to need to ask them for help until the heart condition surfaced. I had believed myself fitter than I'd ever been and it was completely out the blue.
Along with a number of other considerable stresses, I had no idea what would happen to Leeloo if I were out of action for any length of time. My Husband adores her but he also works full time. We have two children one of whom needs a lot of extra care. Add in looking after me and I had serious worries about how he would cope. I couldn’t board Leeloo because of her hip condition which at the time required some fairly careful management and a lot of physio and found myself contacting HVWC asking for help.
In the end we did manage everything within the family and I wasn’t out of action for as long as we’d feared, but the support and reassurance were there instantly. If we needed a foster home, they would find one that could manage her needs for as long as it took me to get back on my feet. It was one less thing to worry about at an incredibly difficult time and I was and remain extremely grateful for both that and the fantastic support offered to myself and Leeloo from the amazing ginger community we have online during an incredibly difficult year.
So if you feel able to support this brilliant charity and the fantastic work they do for our wonderful gingers in so many different ways, please do.