Dear friend,

My son Joe was born with a growth disorder in 1991 and although I completely appreciate that life throws terrible circumstances at people that can be perceived as much worse than this, at the time, for my wife Jane and I our world fell apart!

Growth conditions such as Joe’s are very rare affecting as few as 1 in 100,000 and when something as precious as your child has a condition that people, even your GP, hasn’t heard of, life suddenly becomes a daunting place.

Joe endured sixteen years of injections on a growth treatment concluding with numerous operations to undergo limb extensions. To see someone you love go through so much pain is something that can never be appreciated by anyone else and whenever I moan about life I just stop and remind myself of the emotions Joe went through to get where he is today and can only take inspiration from him.

Thankfully Joe’s story has a happy ending with height gain so all the pain was, in some ways, worth it. No doubt there are similar stories to be told, however we have to pay tribute to the organisations that are rarely recognised for the work that is carried out in the specialist fields.

For instance, I cannot speak highly enough of institutions such as Great Ormond Street and Stanmore Orthopaedic Hospital and all these organisations need as much support as they can muster.

But for me, the organisation that is the basis  of all support for both children and adults with the conditions that affected our life is the Child Growth Foundation.

Not only do they support all children, adults and their families with growth and endocrine conditions but they also fund the much needed research on all the rare conditions of growth disorder. Almost all their work is funded by donations as they receive no financial support from government or NHS.

Please, without me banging on about what wonderful work they do please check out their web site at www.childgrowthfundation.org.

Therefore I have decided that this year, in order to raise funds on the Child Growth Foundations behalf, myself and five other wonderful friends are running the Vitality British 10k London Run.

Far enough to make these old bones shudder but short enough to tell a story, the event sees over 25,000 runners take to the street of London in a quest to make the finishing line.

Our aims are to finish in one piece and to raise as much awareness and some funds for the Child Growth Foundation.

Any little donation will help and all will be greatly appreciated.

For any donations please visit www.justgiving.com/John-Mari/

Thank you for listening and here’s the route that will make or break me!