It's been 3.5 years since Callum had his car accident. Time passes at different rates for all of us at different times in our lives, but I can't imagine any of us will have experienced the slow passage of time like Callum has whilst recovering from his accident. You could complete a University degree in less time than he's been in hospital/rehab.

Whichever way you look at it, 3.5 years is a long time for anyone to be away from family, friends, and the community you grew up in. When you consider that Callum has been recovering and coming to terms with what was a life-threatening brain injury, it takes on a whole new dimension of challenge and hardship.

Those 3.5 years away from home are on the brink of coming to an end though, with Callum's discharge from the Frenchay Brain Injury Unit back home being held up at the final hurdle by Covid restrictions.

Whilst the therapeutic support at Frenchay has been an essential thread/component in Callum's recovery and progress, the therapy provision, once he is living back in the community will be minimal, from what we understand. This means that any additional therapies, which he will continue to need to maximise his chances at rehab, will have to be funded privately.

There are many studies showing that brain injury patients benefit most from therapy the more it can be 'frontloaded'; this has been borne out by our experience of his time at Frenchay. Both we and his therapists have been astounded at his progress thus far, given the severity of his injury.

The bottom line is that the more therapy Callum can receive, the greater the positive impact on his quality of life in the medium and long term.

So I'm asking you to sponsor me as I put myself through a gruelling physical challenge so that we can all help Callum maximise his chances to have as rich a life as possible.

As well as asking you all to put your hand in your pocket, I'll be contributing 10% of everything raised too. So the more money you're able to donate, the more money I'll chip in too.

If you want to read about Callum's long journey of recovery in a lot more detail, my Mum and I have written a number of updates since his accident in September 2017, which can be found on this blog.

The Challenge

Starting on the 5th March, I will be running 4 miles every 4 hours, for a total of 48 hours. I'll be doing 12 runs in total, starting at midday Friday, and then beginning my last run midday on Sunday 7th. The run loop I'm doing is slightly longer than 4 miles, so the total distance will be 53 miles, or to put it another way just over 2 full marathons.

In each 4 hour block of time I'll have to complete the run, and then squeeze in showering, stretching, eating, and at night sleeping before getting going again.

I didn't come up with this crazy challenge myself, however. It is being put forward by a man called David Goggins. So that weekend I'll be joining lots of other people around the planet who are raising money for causes that are important to them. Goggins is a truly inspirational person and I highly recommend you check out his amazing book/audiobook Can't Hurt Me.

During the challenge, I'll be posting updates on Instagram, so if you're interested you can take a look here, and I'll also be tracking all my runs on Strava too so feel free to have a peek if you're on there too/if you have the app.