Thanks for taking the time to visit my JustGiving page.

Sean's story:

Christmas day 2007, Our twelve year old daughter Amy was taken ill and rushed into hospital, she spent the whole of Christmas week in there and was diagnosed with Type 1, Insulin dependant Diabetes, we never saw it coming, although with hindsight the signs were there, for example, too many visits to the loo, thirst, headaches and knowing this now, as parents that was difficult to take. The initial realisation of how this was going to affect Amy both short and long term and also the changes we had to make as a family placed a great deal of stress on us all, luckily we had, in Amy, a child who was old enough and level headed enough to comprehend and understand the changes she had to make in her life and also have the approach to manage this correctly, there is an increasing number of children under five years of age being diagnosed with type 1 Diabetes and given our experiences, that must place a huge amount of stress on a parent in that situation, as diabetes requires a strict regime to manage it correctly, something you cannot expect a child of that age to understand. Amy has her ups and downs but on a daily basis she has to contend with and worry about her blood sugar levels, this affects everything she does and we do as a family, from, Physical education at school to having the embarrassment of injecting herself when we dine out, planning medication adjustments for holidays to ensuring she always has correct foods for emergencies, these are just peripheral problems she has to contend with and nothing to do with how this illness makes her feel generally.

Twelve months on from Diagnosis and I was talking to my Friend Carl Dunn and I happened to mention I had always fancied cycling from Lands end to John o Groats, he suggested we did it for charity and here we are!! we started training eighteen months ago on our mountain bikes and to date we complete regular 60-70 mile rides and the biggest to date is 110 miles, quite an achievement considering we were nowhere near fit. We have planned in the ride for May 2010 and it will take us 10 days to complete the 1000 mile ride. Our target is to raise between 15-20k and we will be splitting the fund between diabetes UK and the local Diabetes voluntary group who organise events with local children who are affected with Diabetes.

Carl's story:

I was shocked to hear Sean’s story about his daughter Amy’s Christmas spent in hospital, but I thought it is only diabetes. I thought I knew a little about it through my mum, grandma, uncle and father-in-law who were / are all type 2 or type 3 diabetics. Really I, like many other non diabetics, knew very little and the ignorance I had shown was unbelievable. Diabetes is such a complicated illness, the more you learn about it, the more it doesn’t make sense, particularly when you are 13 and diagnosed as type 1.

Understanding when and how much medication to administer is a complex routine for child and parents, I don’t profess to fully understand diabetes, not by a long way, but I know more now than I did two years ago.

Seeing how Amy has coped, getting on with her life and studies and never complaining is an inspiration to anyone. When Sean asked me to help him raise funds, well, how could I possibly refuse. I would like to raise the awareness of this disease and help people receive the best possible medication and treatment and help fund research to find a cure.

Sean wanted a challenge to raise funds and a lot of different activities were discussed; head shaves, sky dives, marathons and bike rides. I felt that to raise a substantial amount the challenge had to be difficult yet achievable. Head shaves, neither of us need to lose much in that department, throwing yourself out of an aeroplane, anybody can do that, running a marathon, just look at the numbers at the London Marathon, anybody can do that, with a bit of training! A bike ride, coast to coast, anybody could do that. But what about end to end, Land’s End to John O’Groats, can anyone do that, well we are about to find out.

Our training started on mountain bikes and each time we went out we were cold, wet and sore! It was obvious from the start we would need a couple years training and as we are both 40 in 2010, we quite liked the idea of achieving something worthwhile for  charity in that special year.

Both of us are novice riders and we tried mountain bikes on the road which was hard work so the search for road bikes began. We soon found the difference, road bikes are a few miles an hour quicker but you still have to pedal as hard and the saddle is more uncomfortable!

So here’s to May 2010 - please, please help us reach our targets and make this challenge worthwhile.

 

We are passionate about this charity and with your help we aim to achieve our target and help Diabetes UK research & develop better treatments, prevent Diabetes and ultimately find a cure.

Are you aware........

1. There are over TWO million people in the UK who have been diagnosed with Diabetes.

2. Another 750,000 people in the UK have diabetes but are completely unaware of it.

3. 25 million people in the UK who are 44 and over and overweight are at a greater risk of developing Diabetes.

4. Diabetes is serious, if left untreated it leads to Heart disease, Stroke, Amputations and other life threatening diseases.

5. Diabetes is the leading cause of blindness in people of a working age.

Please ,Please, Please help us acheive our target and aid Diabetes UK in the fight against this ever increasing disability.

Thanks,

Sean Yates & Carl Dunn.  

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 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 the charity.

So please dig deep and donate now.