Hi,

William is a 15 year old local Beccles boy and needs our help to get his bathroom done.

This lovely boy has Juvenile Battens disease with symptoms including blindness, epilepsy, loss of communication, short-term memory loss, dementia and severe mobility needs. William and his Dad, Gary Minns (who works for M&H Plastics London Road) need to rebuild their bathroom to help William with his daily routines. They need £7000 for the equipment and builders to get all the work done.

To raise this money I have decided to complete a huge personal challenge which is to trek Everest base Camp in Nepal this May.

If you could sponsor me to help William and Gary to ease William's stress and discomfort. Let's do this !! :)

To read more about Williams story please see below.

Massive thank you for ALL of you! You are great!

William's story

William was born 11of May 2003

He has two older sisters who adore and dote on him.

At the age of five, we as a family noticed William was struggling with his eyesight and after numerous eye tests William was eventually transferred to Great Ormond street hospital to look into his case further.

We were informed in the first instance that he may be going blind and after a long heart-breaking process, the prognosis was that William, at the age of six had a rare genetic condition called CNL3 Juvenile Battens disease, obviously this came as a complete shock. Symptoms include Blindness, epilepsy, loss of communication, short-term memory loss, dementia and severe mobility needs. This condition has no cure, his life expectancy is late teens to early twenties and he is already nearly 15.

William throughout his early years was a happy boy and still is. All his family and friends adore him. When he was younger, he loved films, football, archery and learning to ride his bike and to this day still enjoys his Ben 10 dvd’s, music and singing. Sadly, he is no longer able to enjoy the things he loved the most (apart from listening to his dvd’s).

William loved mainstream school; he was very happy and very popular and made many friends. Because of his condition, William has had to move to a special school that can deal with his needs and I might add he is a very popular and comedic addition.

The tragic thing is William is still very happy but is also aware of his changing life style and constantly asking why am I blind. Will I die?

William is now completely Blind and suffering from all of the symptoms of Battens.

Although Williams Mum and I live apart we have an understanding that Williams needs come first and we share responsibilities equally, Williams mum is classed as the main carer and therefore receives all of the benefits that have been provided for Williams needs which is only fair.

Mobility is a massive ongoing issue and will get worse over time. A wet room would be an awesome addition. This would allow easy transport of William through to the wet room from his downstairs bedroom with his shower chair. Currently we have to try and walk him into the downstairs shower room and squeeze him into a small shower cubical which causes William a lot of stress and unnecessary strain on him and his slowly weakening body.