On 15th August 2009 my beautiful daughter, Summer, was born, an apparently healthy little girl with no problems.  Little were we to know that by the time she was a year old we would be questioning her development and that just after her second birthday she would be diagnosed with Rett Syndrome, a devastating neurological disorder for which there is currently no cure.  Rett Syndrome first strikes seemingly healthy little girls between the ages of six months and three years and Summer will never be self-sufficient, she will  be wheelchair-bound and dependent on others for every aspect of her life unless we find a cure. Rett Syndrome has been cured in mice in the laboratory and Reverse Rett is  the only charity focusing completely on research for a cure. Crucially Summer has no brain damage but just one faulty gene, the one that provides protein for brain function.  I want to hear my daughter speak, see her walk and have a normal life, this is why myself and my friends Darren Blue Sole and Marc Bunnage  have formed Team Summer and are going to row the River Severn from the Source (which to start with will have to be by bike as the river is only a trickle in a bog in the Cambrian Mountains) to the Sea.  We want to raise as much money as possible to  help Summer and all the other girls and women with Rett Syndrome.  We will be starting out on the first week of September so please donate to our cause.  We are not canoeists but we are determined to succeed.  We must get a cure for Rett Syndrome.  We want Summer and all the other girls and women with this devastating disorder to be able to live a normal life.

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