Stephen Cannings
Stephen's Ironman Barcelona page
Fundraising for Meningitis Now
Story
Thanks for taking the time to visit my JustGiving page.
On Sunday 2nd October I'm competing in my first (and I've promised my wife) only Ironman triathlon, for those who don't know that's a 2.4 mile swim, followed by 112 mile cycle and then all finished off with running a marathon. I've a lot of friends who do these for fun and/or are serious athletes for whom it's just another day at the office, it'll not be for me it's going to be a tough day out with some tough cut off times for me to meet to ensure I finish. Why am I doing it - simple for me, because I want to achieve it, I'm not and never have seen it as a fundraiser.
So why the annoying message then? Simple loads of folks who know me have said they'd like to donate to a charity of my choice and like many of us there are one or two that are very personal to me. In September 2014 my youngest son started university like many of our children do, he loved it and all looked pretty good to us as parents worrying about him away from home. Then in March last year we got a phone call at 3.00 am from Manchester Royal Infirmary telling us he'd just been admitted there with meningitis and that we needed to get there now. To be honest the next few days are still too painful to recount here but we and he were as lucky as anyone can be who contracts meningitis, he got through it and is fighting back to as near to full health as he can achieve. He has some life changing effects but he's still here to tell the tale and back at uni studying with a lot of support, he's back to kicking my backside when we're out on the bike too!
The really important bit and the real reason for all this blathering is that the single reason that he is still here is that his girlfriend knew what the early signs were and had enough about her to get an ambulance and get him where he needed to be immediately, without her then things don't bear thinking about.
The reason for telling our story is simple, please make yourselves aware of what those early signs are, please make sure that any of your children going off to university at this time of year know what they are, there are excellent resources/advice call it what you will on the Meningitis Now website https://www.meningitisnow.org/meningitis-explained/signs-and-symptoms/
That's it really please spend that 15 minutes or so you would have wasted watching something daft on the tele tonight reading their advice and letting anyone who feel should know about it, what those early signs are.
Lastly if you are one of the people who said they'd like to donate something, thanks very much they're a great bunch of people who have helped and continue to support us as a family hugely. Click somewhere up there on the top right of the page and bung them a quid or two.
Cheers
Cheers
Stephen