Dear lovely souls,

Thanks for taking the time to visit my JustGiving page.

As some of you will know, back in June 2018, our son, Benjamin was diagnosed with Acute Myeloid Leukaemia. He was ten years old at the time and our family of five stayed positive throughout his treatment.

Part of that treatment, as Ben was found to be high risk, meant that he would have to undergo a stem cell transplant. As a family and as a parent, I cannot begin to express the worry that this knowledge brings every minute of every day and then the utter joy and relief of hearing the news that a donor has been found for your child.

Benny underwent a stem cell transplant in October of 2018. We were blessed with having him home again, almost six months to the day of his diagnosis, just before Christmas 2018. It was to be our last Christmas together as a physical family of five. It was understated and so precious.

We enjoyed a further ten months together as a family, following his transplant. Ben and his sisters, myself and his Dad are so grateful to DKMS for their unending support throughout our cancer journey and this is my way of trying to raise awareness and do something in my beautiful son's name, who died in my arms in August 2019, just after his 12th birthday.

I've decided to undertake this challenge over the course of 29 weeks, beginning on Friday 24 July, which was actually my son, Ben's original due date, though he was born several days later on 4 August. I hope to finish around 14 February 2021, which will hopefully allow me to cover approximately 17 miles per week / 3.5 miles per day, if exercising five days of the week. 14 February is important to me, as it was his 100 days post transplant check up in Bristol in 2019.

In the days before Ben died, he told me he would look down on all the statues I built for him and I am determined to continue building those statues, making a difference, to enable more donors to sign up to the register. I love him so much and I know that right now, there are thousands of families waiting for a stem cell donor.

You could be their magical match and could offer them and their family more time together, or could even potentially save their life.

Thank you for your support and for signing up if you can.

Last year DKMS were able to register 228,000 potential blood stem cell donors. It costs £40 to register each potential donor, and add them to the list of lifesavers on stand-by. Without them, and without amazing donors to pay for their registration, blood cancer patients might not get a second chance at life. Please sponsor my virtual trek / run / cycle(?!) of a lifetime, and help more blood cancer patients to find their match!

Donating through JustGiving is simple, fast and totally secure. Your details are safe with JustGiving - they'll never sell them on or send unwanted emails. Once you donate, they'll send your money directly to the charity. So it's the most efficient way to donate - saving time and cutting costs for the charity.