Thanks for taking the time to visit my JustGiving page. About 12 months ago I became ill with what turned out to be infective endocarditis (an infection of the inner lining of the heart; if you've never heard of it, count yourself lucky; if you have I'm guessing you've either had it or you work in cardiac medicine).

The infection irrecoverably damaged my aortic heart valve and my retinas and gave me several strokes which affected my speech and vision. It came close to killing me.

I'm still alive because of my very astute GP (it's difficult to diagnose) and because of the care I received from the nurses, doctors, surgeons and therapists at Queen Elizabeth Hospital, Birmingham who, in the course of a two-month hospital stay, pumped me full of antibiotics, gave me open heart surgery to replace my damaged valve and supervised my recovery.

A year later I've started training for my first race post-surgery. To thank the people to whom I owe my continued ability to run (and walk, talk, breathe etc.) I've decided to raise money to support the three departments at QEHB who chiefly looked after me: Cardiology (ward 304), Cardiothoracic Surgery (ward 306) and the Cardiac Rehabilitation Team.

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 the charity. So it's the most efficient way to donate - saving time and cutting costs for the charity.