On Friday 21st June, I will be walking a marathon route around London with the guys and girls from MMX Retail and many others in support of The Brain Tumour Charity and specifically their funding towards the PNET5 trial. Even if I have to finish this walk on my hands and knees I am determined to do this for a cause which I feel so strongly about!

The Brain Tumour Charity is at the forefront of the fight to defeat brain tumours, making a difference every day to the lives of people with a brain tumour and their families. As you may know, David Hobbs (one of my surveying friends) son, Alex, was diagnosed with Medulloblastoma (a type of Brain Tumour) in September 2017 aged 3.5 years. 

Alex survived an emergency 8.5 hour brain operation and had a further 12 months of chemotherapy and at one point, 6 weeks of daily radiotherapy under daily general anaesthetic. 

Medulloblastoma is the most common paediatric brain tumour, but as treatments have to target the whole of the brain and spinal cord, they are aggressive and can leave long-term, life-altering disabilities for children who survive.

Through the care Alex has been receiving at GOSH, UCLH and Watford hospitals, David's family made the decision to allow Alex to join a Europe-wide treatment trial called PNET5.

Alex is the first child in the UK on the PNET5 trial.

Part of PNET5 aims to prove that children can benefit from a different treatment regimen that results in fewer immediate side effects and reduced risk of critical long term disabilities, without any negative impact on length of survival.

Please sponsor me if you can - we hope that the PNET5 trial will advance our knowledge of Medulloblastoma Brain Tumours and improve treatment for children into the future and for Alex.