Thank you for taking the time to sponsor me.

Sadly, in February 2009 my father lost his 4-year battle with PSP (Progressive Supranuclear Palsy).  PSP affects 15,000 people and many of these are thought to have been wrongly diagnosed with Parkinson's disease. Patients are given between 5-8 years to live with the disease, but as diagnosis can often take a while most people only have 2-3 years once they have been diagnosed.

PSP affects people in different way, but for my father in 2006 he lost the ability to balance, so could no longer walk and before he was in a wheelchair a lot of time was spent in A&E as he would have fallen over. In 2007 he then lost the ability to talk making it truly frustrating as my father was quite a talker! Towards the end of 2007 he lost the ability to swallow and in 2008 had a peg inserted to enable him to eat. Prior to this we had to watch him choke to the point where he often struggled to breath. So PSP had taken his mobility, his speech, and the ability to swallow and eat.  The disease unfortunately began to take his sight but in August 2008 he did get to see his only Grandchild, Ciaran, but sadly 6 months later lost his battle with this terrible disease. 

 

The disease took everything away from my father apart from his infectious smile. No matter what, he always had a smile for you - and I remember this whenever I'm feeling stressed at work or fed up!

His dying wish was to donate his brain and spine to Life Science to help them find a cure for this terrible disease.  It is still not known what causes the disease either. Your money will help fund the research into the cause, treatments and eventually the cure for PSP

 

Thank you so much for your support

Liz Hanway + family x