My New Year resolution is to give up alcohol for January, not for any particular reason other than to give my liver a rest after the 'silly season'! Until this came into my mind...............

 My daughter Naomi has been waiting for major brain surgery since her diagnosis of Chiari Malformation last New Year (which we spent in hospital!), having never heard of this rare condition before I 'googled' it and came across the Ann Conroy Trust which funds research and education and most importantly gives support for sufferers and their families. This condition can often go undiagnosed until the sufferer is in a really bad way, we were lucky and Naomi was diagnosed immediately following an MRI scan, but we had to wait for surgery as this cannot be done in the private sector. She had decompression surgery last week to release the cerebellum tonsils from the foremen magnum, this is major brain surgery and not to be undertaken lightly but it is the only cure (and not 100% guaranteed to be successful). Naomi is lucky (?) because I am a trained nurse and we have a very supportive family but the Ann Conroy Trust helped me with the little things that the Neurosurgeon doesn't tell you and there is also support from fellow sufferers. So that is why I decided to dedicate my dryathlon January to raising money for this Trust. 

I would like to raise £1000, and if enough people support me I'm sure this is achievable: a donation of 50p per day would  raise £15.50 and would be great, a donation of £1.00 per day would raise £31.00 and would be super, a donation of any more would be just amazing!!

Most of us are very fortunate in that we are all 'relatively' healthy, a debilitating condition/illness is a terrible twist of fate, please support my campaign so that the Ann Conroy Trust can continue to help sufferers and their families and fund the much needed research.

 THANK-YOU for taking the time to read this, further information about this and associated conditions is available on the Ann Conroy web site.