Two years ago, at the very start of this journey, I shared the very long story of my battle with sight loss on this page. For those of you who read it at that point, you know that my battle has been going on for the last 34 years and through a number of cornea transplants, I have been so fortunate to live the most amazing life. Since my last update pre 2020 virtual marathon, I received my 4th cornea transplant, but unfortunately, it rejected just before lockdown. Despite a vigorous steroid onslaught to reverse the rejection, I have been left completely blind in this eye now. My remaining eye has rejected on two occasions already and we have managed to reverse this with large doses of steroids. I have very poor vision in my right eye but can still see in focus, right in front of my face if the contrast of the object is good and light conditions are optimal. After arms length, life unfortunately gets very confusing. I have recently completed long cane training and am slowly becoming increasingly independent on familiar routes. I have no idea how long I will hold on to this small amount of vision for, but I am making the most of every day and embracing my “new normal” with enthusiasm and determination. 

Suzanne is acting as my guide runner and has given up so much of her time and energy to help me raise much needed funds for RNIB. She is the most patient, generous, thoughtful and incredible friend and I am blessed that she has agreed to join me in this journey. I put myself totally in her hands every time we are tethered together for a run and I trust her implicitly. The responsibility on her is a huge, one but she literally takes it all in her stride.  

RNIB have played a large part in helping me cope with losing the majority of my sight overnight and over the last 4 years, have provided me with so much support. I have been on a sight loss course, received counselling, had technical support, been on a variety of trips and been introduced to a whole bunch of sight impaired people who understand what problems arise  day to day with the reality of sight loss. I have made extensive use of their talking books library, I’ve joined walking groups and been involved in a number of very enjoyable projects on zoom and teams over the pandemic such as clay/ glass classes, gogglebox and even cookery classes all run by RNIB. 

Our journey to running London marathon has not been a smooth one, with the pandemic. Virgin London Marathon 2020 was postponed and then cancelled, but we did take the opportunity to run it virtually in October 2020 (in probably the worst weather in history).  Including gift aid, we managed to raise nearly £11,500, thanks to the generosity of everyone. We were blown away with our total as were RNIB. We can not thank everyone enough for their support and encouragement. 

So now we are attempting, yet again, to make it to London in October to run the marathon. We have booked and changed flights and accommodation 3 times since this process started and we really hope that this time the marathon can go ahead. Training is going very well and we are on plan with mileage so far. We hope to keep you updated throughout.Thank you so much for supporting us on this adventure and raising money for such a worthy cause. 

Gill & Suzanne xxxx