To cut a long and painful story short, my first born beautiful boy Rocco has epilepsy and it sucks!

Rocco was born perfect (well aren't they all) but at around 6 months old, our bubble was popped. You know that bubble, that 'first born' magical bubble of first smiles, first giggles, that indescribable feeling they give you in your tummy when they babble 'dadadadadadada' its magic...…..

'Your son has West Syndrome Mr and Mrs Mickelsen, its an extremely rare form of epilepsy and the outlook is not good unless Rocco responds to treatment...only 10% of children respond to treatment'.

…..So you can imagine, im sure ,how dramatically our bubble popped, sort of like a knife in the heart. 

Rocco had a huge mountain to climb at such a tender age, but he did it. Rocco was one of that 10%. This statistic that just seemed too little for me to pin my hopes on and he did it. My Boy. My World. 

Since then, as you can imagine we have thanked our lucky stars every single day...since then he has had several other mountains to climb. As you can imagine having had such a significant form of epilepsy at a critical age in his development delayed Rocco's speech and some other skills. But he just kept on climbing, he kept on reaching the top. 'wanky' the cat next door eventually became 'franky' the cat next door (thankfully) and he learnt to ride his bike without stabilisers when he was 3. 

……

Sadly when I was 7 months pregnant, May last year,  Rocco's epilepsy returned, to say we were devastated is an understatement, the PAIN is real. But the boy just keeps on climbing. 

Rocco is currently having around 5 seizures a day, medication hasn't worked so far and we are now in the mists of trialing a ketogenic diet, its a journey, another mountain to climb. 

But as in the title, there Ain't No Mountain High Enough, and we as a family will just keep on climbing until we reach the top and a life free of epilepsy for our Rocco. 

He's done it before, he can do it again. 

IT'S MY TURN NOW, I'm going to climb 3 of the tallest mountains in the UK in 24 short hours and my 60 year old Mum in a Million is joining me! 

Please sponsor us, for anyone that knows me well (bleep test/nose bleeds) this is huge! 

From the bottom of my heart, Thank You xx 

Steph x

Epilepsy Research UK is the only charity exclusively dedicated to driving and enabling life changing, life saving research in the UK. Our pioneering funded research is currently being carried out in over 40 universities and hospitals throughout the country. The projects we fund are of the highest scientific merit and aim to provide help for today and hope for tomorrow. A life free from epilepsy is possible. The only way to achieve this is through research.