This March, I will be making a comeback running the London Landmarks Half Marathon and the London Marathon. I embarked myself in this journey to raise funds in support of Make-A-Wish's mission to enrich the lives of children fighting life-threatening conditions. Make-A-Wish grants magical wishes to children providing them with hope for the future, strength to cope and resilience to fight their condition. 

I was only 13 when my dad was diagnosed with Leukemia. For months, I sat beside his hospital bed praying for a miracle - I felt every pain, every needle through his bone marrow, every round of chemotherapy as if they were being applied to me. My blood was clear, but we endured the treatment together.. we had always been a team and this was not going to be the exception. 

Our lives changed in a blink of eye. He was not longer that strong, omnipotent man I knew and I was not longer a 13 yo girl.Conversations with my friends went from boy crushes to platelets and cancer cells. From planning a night out to the matinee to finding blood donors and not even knowing whether he would make it to the weekend. Every night before leaving the hospital the doctors would tell us to say goodbye to him - as he was not expected to make it through the night. But he did.. he went through many of those nights over 16 long months. When he was finally released, I was so terrified he would die at home that I would kiss him goodnight and spend the whole night sat in the staircase to hear him breathing until the sun came out and was time to go to school. We would have grabbed onto any opportunity to escape from even if it were for a couple of minutes. And that is what Make-A-Wish does. 

My dad was the strongest person I knew, but not even Mayweather would have won that fight. It didn't matter how hard he wanted to push through or how much he wanted to live.. he left me. He wasn't with me when I graduated from college, when I crossed the finish line of my first race or to meet the first boy I fell in love with. Not a day goes by that I don't think of him. I miss him every single day.

A few years later,  mom was diagnosed with breast cancer and I knew I had to do something. Since then, I have completed several endurance events - from 10kms to Ironman races - and raised over $150,000 for cancer research. I regularly visit hospitals to play with children undergoing cancer treatments, aiming to deliver that experience I wish I had had - taking them away from their realities for a couple of hours, making them smile and reminding them that there is more to them than this horrible disease.  Make-A-Wish does an incredible job in giving them the chance to make magical memories they can treasure forever – whatever their future may hold. 

I'm not a doctor, I'm not a researcher.. I won’t find a cure myself but I can do something to put a smile on their faces - even if there is for a little while and raise  funds to give people currently battling terminal diseases and myself, HOPE that in a near future, a cure will be found.

Please help us grant more wishes and deliver more smiles by making a donation to Make-A-Wish.