John Smithers
Three Peaks Challenge
Fundraising for The Daisy Garland
Story
What a wknd smashed the 3 peaks in 22 hours 15 minutes had a good laugh with the boys, hardest thing I have ever done glad I did a bit of training before as it paid off. Special thanks to duane our guide and rob our driver aka the stig.
info
We started off climbing Ben Nevis in Scotland setting off at 5pm it took 4 hours 30 minutes to reach the summit and get back to the mini bus. We then travelled to Scar Fell Pike in the Lake District and arrived in the early hours of the morning, as we set off it was raining, dark we all felt quite sickly from the journey but plodded on with our walking poles and head torches. The climb and descent took 3 hours 30 minutes. By completing the first two mountains quickly by the time we reached Snowden in Wales we had 6 hours to complete the mountain, the pressure was off and we finished in 4 hours 15 minutes which meant our overall time was 22 hours 15 minutes. The weather was quite bad on Snowden it started to rain about 20 minutes into the climb and didn’t stop until we had finished.
It was a fantastic experience but one which I won’t repeat in a hurry, two days later I am still in pain and finding it very difficult to walk especially up stairs. Thank you for the sponsorship this was always in the back of my mind and couldn't let any body down.
Thanks for taking the time to visit my JustGiving page.Donating through JustGiving is simple, fast and totally secure. Your details are safe with JustGiving – they’ll never sell them on or send unwanted emails. Once you donate, they’ll send your money directly to the charity. So it’s the most efficient way to donate – saving time and cutting costs for the charity.
Having completed an 11 mile kayak down the length of Lake Windermere in 2011, our next challenge we have set ourselves is to climb the 3 highest peaks in Scotland (Ben Nevis), England (Scafell Pike) and Wales (Snowdon) in under 24 hours. This will be the hardest and most physically and mentally challenging thing that myself and 4 other team members will undertake. If things go to plan we will be on the hills climbing for about 13 hours Ben Nevis first then Scafell Pike finishing with Snowdon.
I would like to use this challenge as an opportunity to raise as much money as possible for a charity called The Daisy Garland Trust. Eva Lerman who is the 2 year old daughter of mine and Lornas close friends Sam and Claire, was diagnosed with Angelman Syndrome last year. Angelman Sydrome is a rare condition and part of the condition means that Eva suffers from Epilepsy. The Daisy Garland Trust has helped her in a number of ways – Claire her mum has provided an explanation of how the Trust has helped and changed Evas quality of life.
“On the 28th June 2013 our beautiful little Eva was diagnosed with a condition called Angelman Syndrome. We were shocked to hear that this meant Eva would be unable to speak, might never walk & was highly likely to start with seizures.
Just 4 months after her diagnosis Eva started with epilepsy and has sadly has been in & out of hospital numerous times since. All the medications we were given completely failed to control Eva's seizures.
We had read about something called a Ketogenic diet & we were desperate for Eva to be able to try this as a form of medication. Our neurologist allowed us to meet with the Manchester Children's hospital Ketogenic dietician who is called Vicki Whitely & as well as telling us about the diet we were fascinated to learn that Vicki had been put into the hospital by a charity called The Daisy Garland Trust.
This trust was set up by the parents of a beautiful little girl called Daisy who sadly died from SUDEP (sudden unexpected death in epilepsy) aged just 6yrs old.
The Manchester Children’s hospital has only had a Ketogenic dietician for 2yrs & when Vicki first started she told us that she had a waiting list up to 5yrs long of people wanting to do the diet!
Eva started the diet on the 4th March 2014 as her seizures had ramped up to a level where she was having them every minute of every day & amazingly within 48 hrs of starting the diet they stopped completely!! We have not seen any seizures in the past month!
This would not have been possible without The Daisy Garland Trust who continues to fundraise to install ketogenic dieticians into NHS hospitals. They also fundraise to provide parents with night time seizure alarms which are £880 each. We are eternally grateful to The Daisy Garland Trust & we just don't know what we would have done without them”
Please sponsor me to help raise money for such a fantastic charity.