Thank you very much for visiting my London Marathon JustGiving page.

A lot of you may know that I have a passion for running and supporting charitable causes. Fewer of you will know that hearing loss has affected my family and I. 

As a child, I suffered from persistent 'glue ear' - a condition of the middle ear that I do not advise googling and that required a series of operations to ventilate fluid from the middle ear. My hearing at such a critical time of my educational and personal development was impaired and, as a result, not only did I feature on a documentary on the topic and become renowned for constantly saying "huh?" and "what?", I also developed subtle coping mechanisms to overcome this deficiency. 

My susceptibility to this condition in continued in my left ear until I started at university, at which time, instead of getting a hearing aid, I opted for a complex surgery essentially involving the bones in my ear being repositioned and ear drum re-grafted...again not one for the family album! This surgery took my hearing that was fluctuating between -30/-40% and kept it fixed at a much improved and stable rate of -5/-10%. 

I was extremely fortunate to have access to fantastic surgeons, medical technology and innovative surgical processes to improve my hearing. Unfortunately the situation was not the same for both of my grandads. Grandad Randall lost his hearing completely in WWII and Grandad Bright has hearing aids in both ears. I'm sure many of you know someone in similarly unfortunate situations.

I have chosen to run my first marathon, in my home-town of London for Action on Hearing Loss as I hugely value my own hearing and would love to help find tomorrow's treatments for the 11 million people in the UK who are affected by deafness, hearing loss and tinnitus. 

Any donations, big or small will mean so much and are greatly appreciated. Additionally, for those of you who know how much I love puns, I will try my best to respond to your donation with some word-play...but don't blame me if it comes across a tad earresponsible...

I will also continue to post training updates on Facebook for all those interested in following my miles. 

Thank you so much! See you at the finish line! 

Alfie x

#teambright #actionsquad #londonmarathon2019

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