Hi everybody! Thanks for taking the time to visit my JustGiving page. Please would you take a couple of minutes to read the following and then sponsor me? Thank you.
As you will be aware, I have had Myalgic Encephalomyelitis (ME) (also known as Chronic Fatigue Syndrome or CFS) since I was 17. I am now 35, and have therefore lived with this cruel, physical illness for 18 years; day in, day out, with no days off for good behaviour. A long time. During this time, I have had peaks and troughs, and some of the troughs have been very low. I am one of the luckier people with the illness, I am able to work part-time, have a social life and live independently, but many people I know are severely affected and are housebound, their lives destroyed. Even so, the illness impacts on my life in a major way. My day is strictly paced, (alternating activity and rest), my diet is very restricted due to food intolerances, I have all manner of weird symptoms, and the hardest part is that I get easily exhausted. If I step outside the limited parameters in which I live, I pay for it big time, suffering great pain and fatigue. I try very hard to live life with a smile on my face and be grateful for what I can do, not bitter about what I can't, so many people are not aware of the extent of my illness. It affects all aspects of my life; my health, my career, my finances, my social life, my relationships. It is very hard for people to understand what it is like to have ME; imagine not sleeping for 48 hours, then running a marathon with a hangover and 'flu. How you would feel at the end of this is similar to how people with ME often feel.
Over the last ten years I have done a lot of voluntary work, writing articles for Welsh ME charity magazines, mentoring young people with ME, running training sessions to educate people about ME, and giving interviews to local papers to try and raise awareness of ME. Now I have decided it is high time I tried to raise some money for ME Research UK. The government, although it recognises ME as a neurological illness, has never funded one penny of biomedical research into ME. Life is hard enough for the quarter of a million UK citizens living with this chronic, debilitating illness every day, but it is even more heart-breaking knowing that there is so little research going on in the world to try and find the cure we are all so desperate for. ME Research UK, a charity, (also known as MERGE), is the one ray of hope in this country. The aim of ME Research UK is to fund biomedical research into ME/CFS - to find its cause, to develop effective treatments, and ultimately to discover a cure for this poorly understood illness.
This is where you can help. Other than selling the occasional Blue Ribbon for Awareness of ME, I have never asked anyone to give any money to ME causes, (and I am very conscious that we live in credit crunch times), but I would be very grateful indeed if you would sponsor me in my fundraising event which will take place in September 2009. What is it? It's called Sharon's 24 Hour Sponsored Silence. The reasons for choosing this are: firstly I am unable to undertake anything sporty, secondly the silence represents the silence with which people with ME are met when they ask for help from the government, and thirdly because as you all know, I am a chatty little thing who rarely shuts up, and therefore remaining mute for 24 hours is going to be a massive challenge for me! (My nearest and dearest cannot wait...) I am also going to not communicate in any form, so no texting or emailing either. Eek!
The web address for my JustGiving page where you can donate is www.justgiving.com/merge-raisemoney-sharonprice
Donating through JustGiving is simple, fast and totally secure. Your details are safe with JustGiving – they’ll never sell them on or send unwanted emails. Once you donate, they’ll send your money directly to ME Research UK and make sure Gift Aid is reclaimed on every eligible donation by a UK taxpayer. So it’s the most efficient way to donate - I raise more, whilst saving time and cutting costs for ME Research UK.
If you would like to donate offline, please contact me via my website www.languagesforliving.co.uk or email me at sharonprice1974@yahoo.co.uk for details of where to send me a cheque (payable to Sharon Price), or hand me cash in person, and I will post a cheque to ME Research UK for the total offline donations when I have collected all the money.
Please, please give what you can, not only for my sake, but for all of us with ME. I am aiming to try and raise £750.
With thanks, love and best wishes,
Sharon. xx
