In July 2018, Karthik, Sarasa and Shanti sadly lost Raj to pulmonary fibrosis. 

This little-known condition is "idiopathic" - in other words, it has no known cause and comes on spontaneously. It causes scar tissue to build up in the lungs and makes it increasingly hard for the sufferer to breathe. It's also progressive, so the condition gets worse over time. 

People diagnosed with idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis (IPF) can live anywhere from 2-5 years with the condition. Our Dad made it for roughly 2.5 years from diagnosis. He was fiercely independent throughout and managed to live a good quality of life until the end, which we are grateful for. But this is not the case for everyone. 

And the worst thing is that there is currently no treatment or cure for it. That's why we are running and walking the Leeds half marathon in May 2019, to raise money for the British Lung Foundation and help us better understand IPF, to be able to work towards finding treatment. The BLF have also kindly agreed to restrict any funds raised from our donations to go exclusively to fund IPF research, which is amazing. We're proud to be part of #teambreathe. 

Thank you so much for visiting our page and thinking of us, we are grateful for any donations!