On 21st July I'll be walking 57.8km (that's 36 miles) in 24 hours to raise awareness and funds for the Confederation of Meningitis Organisations (CoMO), a charity I proudly work for, that supports organisations around the world to work together in the fight against meningitis and septicaemia. 

24 hours is important here because that's all it can take for someone to go from perfectly healthy to losing their life to this disease. It can impact people of all ages, from newborn babies, to students, to older people. Each year 2.8 million people around the world will be affected by meningitis. Of those that contract bacterial meningitis, 1 in 3 will be left with life-changing after-effects and 1 in 5 will die. We talk about both meningitis and septicaemia because the bacteria that can cause one can cause the other and they often present together.

I've witnessed septicaemia myself. I watched my wonderful mum, who had just made it through her long battle with cancer, be cruelly taken from us by septicaemia. It was just before Christmas in 2010 that she became unwell after her usual kidney dialysis, it had happened before and she'd always been fine. This time was different. She went from her usual crazy levels of excitement about Christmas celebrations and having everyone home, to forgetting who we were. Her fingers and toes slowly turned black and she became so distressed that she had to be put into a medically-induced coma. On 6th January we agreed to switch off her life support machine and she slipped away. I have never been so devastated and she was just 55 years old.

CoMO exists to get stories like these heard so that change can happen. Change to healthcare systems and disease awareness. CoMO brings together organisations around the world to share their learnings and acquire new skills to make their voices heard in their countries. Many of our members started their organisations because they lost a child to the disease and found there was no information available about it in their countries.  

By donating you are helping CoMO to support its members in the global fight against meningitis and septicaemia. If you can't donate then please share this message and raise awareness of meningitis and septicaemia. Thank you for your support.

Sam