<p>&nbsp;</p> <p>Hello and thanks for taking the time to visit my JustGiving page.</p> <p>My name is Jayne, I'm 24 and in October this year I will be trekking through the desert in Jordan to raise money and awareness for the Cardiomyopathy Association and one particular strain of the disease - 'Hypertrophic Cardiomyopathy'.&nbsp;</p> <p>I'll be tracking my progress on my twitter account @jaynecroft using the hashtag #cmadeserttrek and really hope that you will follow me on this journey.</p> <p>For those of you who watch the tv programme One Tree Hill, you may have heard this name before as it the same disease that Dan and Lucas Scott develop earlier on in the series.</p> <p>This kind of heart problem is hereditary and comes from a mutant gene. &nbsp;If one of your parents have the mutant gene, there is a 50/50 chance that you will also develop this disease. &nbsp;Although treatable with medication, it has a serious impact on the quality of your life and leaves you at risk of Sudden Death Syndrome. &nbsp;My Dad has this illness and various members of our family have died as a result of it. &nbsp;</p> <p>Myself, my sister and my cousins are regularly screened for this disease by way of ECG and ECHO scans. &nbsp;We have also looked into genetic testing whereby my Dad's blood can be tested to see if the mutant genes he carries can be isolated. &nbsp;This would mean that our blood could then be tested to see if we are carriers of the gene as well. &nbsp;If we weren't we would no longer need screening which would not only save vital resources for the hospital but would also mean that we cannot pass this disease onto our own children. &nbsp;</p> <p>Unfortunately the technology surrounding the genetic testing is still limited and although my Dad's blood has been tested, they are unable to definitively isolate the defective gene.</p> <p>HCM is most likely to develop earlier on in life and mainly in those under the age of 30 therefore I could show signs of it at anytime. Because of this, I have decided that I want to do something amazing to raise awareness and vital funds before it is too late as I doubt that I would be able to do something like a desert trek if I was diagnosed.</p> <p>These funds could help to develop the gene technology which could rule us out altogether from being carriers of the mutant gene. &nbsp;This may not seem like a lot, but to us it can sometimes feel like living in limbo - you never know from one day to the next what will happen. My Dad often says it is like being a 'ticking time bomb' because it is such an unpredictable illness. &nbsp;With more definitive genetic testing, we would at least have peace of mind.</p> <p>I would therefore like to take this time, first to thank you for reading my page, and second to ask that you donate, any amount no matter how small, to help me to achieve my goal of trekking through the desert in October. &nbsp;My target amount is &pound;2,400 - although this is a lot of money, to me it will be worth every penny. &nbsp;I hope that you understand this and feel the same.</p> <p>Donating through JustGiving is simple, fast and totally secure. Your details are safe with JustGiving &ndash; they&rsquo;ll never sell them on or send unwanted emails. Once you donate, they&rsquo;ll send your money directly to the charity and make sure Gift Aid is reclaimed on every eligible donation by a UK taxpayer. So it&rsquo;s the most efficient way to donate - I raise more, whilst saving time and cutting costs for the charity.</p> <p>So please, please, please dig deep and donate now.</p> <p>Thank you so much.</p> <p>Jayne x</p> <p> <p>&lt;a href="https://twitter.com/jaynecroft" class="twitter-follow-button" data-show-count="false" data-size="large"&gt;Follow @jaynecroft&lt;/a&gt;</p> <p>&lt;script&gt;!function(d,s,id){var js,fjs=d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0];if(!d.getElementById(id)){js=d.createElement(s);js.id=id;js.src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js";fjs.parentNode.insertBefore(js,fjs);}}(document,"script","twitter-wjs");&lt;/script&gt;</p> </p>