My wife, Emma, has Myalgic Encephalomyelitis (or ME). It has been described as many things: hysteria, yuppy flu, chronic fatigue syndrome, conversion disorder. It is a tragically misunderstood illness but what is now established is that it is a debilitating physiological disease that affects millions of people around the world and can leave its victims bed bound for years with little or no contact with the outside world. At its most extreme it can be fatal.There is a broad base of knowledge about ME but progress towards finding an effective treatment is disturbingly slow and underfunded.
Emma and I consider ourselves to be among the lucky ones affected by this dreadful condition, she at least has it relatively mildly compared with those unlucky enough to be completely incapacitated by it. Nonetheless ME has haunted her for the best part of 20 years as well as the damoclesian menace of a significant deterioration without any warning.
To raise money for this I will be cycling a total of 700km in two one-day events; the first is The London Loop Ultra, a 300km loop of London done over one day on 12th May.
The second event is the big one! London to Paris in 24 hours setting out at 7.30pm on Thursday 6th July and arriving in Paris at 7.30pm on Friday 7th July, a mere 250 miles (400km) in one sitting.
I am doing these rides with a rag tag group of seasoned two-wheel adventurers, we will have no formal support during the London2Paris ride but they assure me that's all part of the fun!
Invest in ME Research is an independent UK charity finding, funding and facilitating a strategy of biomedical research into Myalgic Encephalomyelitis (ME or ME/CFS), as defined by WHO-ICD-10-G93.3. and promoting better education about ME.
Thank you for your donation, we are very grateful.
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