Blake Bedford is 20 and he has had to live with Cystic Fibrosis.

Cystic Fybrosis affects the respiratory and gastroenterology systems of the body and the long term affect are many and profound. Due to excessive thick mucus produced both bowel and lungs needs to be treated, mucus blocks the airways and causes extensive damage due to multiple infections. This is combated by regular physiotherapy up to four times a day and nebulised treatment which consists of a cocktail of daily drugs and intravenous antibiotics.

Blake’s Treatment regime is daily! This has increased over the years with more medications being added to help him live his normal life. Unfortunately infections do occur and this usually requires oral or intravenous antibiotics which normally involves a stay in hospital.

My very close friend Lee has known Blake and his family since he was 4 years old, his parents were encouraged to keep him as active as possible so his mum enrolled him into swimming lessons (Lee being his tutor). Blake’s commitment to his lessons was immense, all exercise was hard for him due to his condition but he didn’t let that stop him and he successfully learnt to swim and swim well.

As Blake grew up Lee was becoming more and more aware of how hard it was for Blake and his family to live with the illness. Blake was spending more and more time in and out of hospital and as you can imagine this was a strain and very stressful for the whole family. After many conversations with Blake’s mum, Lee was amazed to learn that when Blake turned 18 the NHS stop funding simple treatments that Blake needs to help maintain his lifestyle.

This is where we come in…

..78 friends from Blake’s community (me being 1) are coming together to walk the Beachy Head Marathon on 28th October. Now you might think walking isn’t much of a challenge! However this will be a monster challenge for many of us especially me.

If you can spare some pennies please sponsor me.