A few days before Christmas my Dad suffered a stroke while undergoing bypass surgery. It was just unlucky, but gutting too. Most noticeably as a result, he was severely affected by something called Broca's Aphasia, which is a loss of expressive language, both spoken and written. In my Dad's case, it totally wiped everything. It was a huge shock for our tiny family, and made for a bit of an alternative Christmas having to learn the alphabet again. 

However, the support we received from Stroke Association was wonderful, even over the Christmas and New Year period. Kind and helpful professionals got in touch with us, they visited the house to provide advice, guidance and hands on help to keep both my Dad *and* my Mum on the road to recovery. It's helped us to remain positive, motivated and included. 

Dad has been making great progress; he's doing amazingly well with his speech and language recovery and it's pretty inspiring to see him pushing himself to face all his challenges head-on. I'm running all my races to, like Dad, keep focused on the tasks in hand and commit to my goals in 2016. We're in it together!

Stroke is a sudden and destructive condition that has a huge effect on thousands of families each year. I'm fundraising to say thank you for the support we have, and to help develop treatments and therapies that will improve how Stroke is detected, treated and ultimately prevented. More than that, Stroke Association provide vital advocacy and lobbying to ensure community support is available to all families affected by Stroke. 

This year I'm taking on:

Innsbruck Half Marathon on 2nd April
Edinburgh Half Marathon on 29th May
Berlin Marathon on 25th September
Glasgow Half Marathon on 2nd October

Thank you for your donation. x

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