I am running the Liverpool Rock 'n' Roll Half Marathon and am doing it to raise funds in support of my friends daughter Mia who took poorly just before Christmas.

"She came to her worst on christmas day. We knew something was wrong when all she wanted to do was sleep. She literally woke up, opened 2 presents then went back to bed. What child does this on christmas day? As she got worse through the day we decided to take her up to A&E. It was there after a CT scan they gave us the news that Mia had a brain tumour. On the 30th Dec, Mia had 8 1/2 surgery to remove the tumour which went really well. We then had to wait a further week to be told what kind of tumour it was. It turned out to be an ependymoma which is cancerous. They then went on to tell us the treatment for Mia would need to be proton beam radio therapy. The only problem with this is isn't currently available in the UK so we would need to go to the USA for treatment. The advantage of proton over standard radiotherapy is that it causes less damage to surrounding brain cells which is much better for a childs developing brain. On average it costs the NHS roughly £100,000 to send a child here for treatment but that dosent cover the parents or costs they incur whilst here so as you can imagine it gets quite expensive. Luckliy Mia is responding really well to the treatment and only has 9 more sessions to go".

The money I raise is going straight to the Cancer unit at Queens Medical Centre in Nottingham because without a doubt they have saved Mia's life. I am also splitting the funds between cbtf.org.uk which is their charity all about researching children's brain tumours. The website explains a lot more about the charity and how only 1% of cancer funding goes to brain tumour and brain cancer.

Please dig deep and give generously.