My name is Matthew Rhodes and I am a St Dunstaner.  I joined the army in 1992 and joined the 1^st Battalion the Devonshire and regiment.  I served in , and did the 1995 summer tour of .  After surviving being shot and bombed at in , I had a motorbike accident in which caused severe brain damage.  The brain damage I received was two blood clots in the centre left of my brain which in turn caused a number of problems.  The loss of emotion, I never felt over sad, but also never over happy.  My memory was gone and I only had a little sight memory left.  I was blinded through my optic nerve being damaged.  Last but by no means least I was paralysed down the right hand side of my body, from my eye to my toes!  When I got transferred from the military hospital, Headly Court, to St Dunstan’s, I entered the blind organisation feeling disabled, but left after 7 months feeling like an average everyday person.  In St Dunstan’s they all treated me as if nothing was wrong, which made me less worried over my disability.  As time went by my sight became worse and to help me cope with my blindness I was introduced to the Guide Dog association and upon receiving my first Guide Dog, I was able to walk with renewed confidence.  To say thanks to St Dunstan’s and the Guide Dogs I started to do fundraising activities.  So far I have done Freefall Skydiving from 12,000ft, swam the Brighton Pier to Pier Challenge, abseiled from the Centre Point building in London, Paraglided up Devils Dyke, and did the London marathon in 2007 which took me 10hours 40minutes to complete.

My next fundraising task is the Brighton Marathon, 26.2 miles, on the 18^th of April 2010.  I shall be doing the course over two days; 13 miles on the Sunday and 13 on the Monday.  I would like to raise as much money as is possible to say thanks to the two worthy charities.

A thought to leave you with; I consider our bodies to be like a car, we are the person inside controlling it; so my car has a couple of flat tyres and smashed headlights, but I am fine from within.

Thank you for reading this challenge, please give generously.

 

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