Thanks for taking the time to visit my JustGiving page;

As people may know, I attempted to run the virtual London marathon last year as support for my brother-in-law without enough training, I lasted 16miles. From there I vowed that in 2021 I would run a marathon, ideally London.. if I’m doing a marathon, I may as well start big 😆

So me and Cheryl Smith will be lacing up and running this together, we’ve never ran a marathon before so the challenge is on! 💪🏻 

This year I applied to run the London marathon for Alzheimer’s research and I’m absolutely made up they accepted my application.  This is a disease that affects 1 in 14 people in the UK (which doesn’t account for 1 in 4 over the age of 65 that aren’t diagnosed!), which subsequently leads to over 50% of the UK population knowing someone diagnosed with this (at present) incurable disease. This rate is set to rise massively,  the pandemic has taken routine away meaning more confusion to the ill,  even highlighting the onset in close family members who have suffered a change of routine and the people they saw daily. 

I have seen first hand the effects when I was younger losing an Aunty and Uncle to Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s, both resulted in them dying of dementia. I suppose I was lucky enough to be so young as to not remember the full effects. But I saw as each deteriorated over the years and my Dad and Nan looked after them both, from dealing with the sale of their house in order to fund their nursing home fees to ensuring they visited even when they were no longer recognised. I was 11 when they died but the years leading up their deaths, I remember our weekly visits to their house, I remember seeing snail trails on their carpets as we visited and realised they couldn’t look after each other or their house anymore to memories of learning to play draughts in their nursing home on our visits. 

Personally I believe Alzheimer’s & Dementia to be one of the most unforgiving, undignified diseases. From the early onset, the care has to start; everything consciously risk assessed by the caregiver. The fear that you leave your husband/wife/mum/dad to make themselves dinner, the worry that they leave the gas on, forget they’ve started cooking, leave the pan to boil over. Something so small, which ultimately becomes the responsibility of family members and stops their life as they’ve known it; To being in the throes of dementia and losing your loved one whilst they physically still are. The sadness of having their  mum, dad, wife, husband,  look at them and not know who they are, to see a shell of the person that was once there. 

Dementia is the leading cause of death in England & Wales, something ARUK are passionate about finding a cure. By having the money to research the disease, they can research the proteins in the brain that cause Alzheimer’s, research to identify markers in the blood, identifying risk genes, road testing brain scan techniques to name a few. 

ARUK have set a challenge to bring about the first life changing dementia treatment by 2025. We’ve seen what money ploughed into a pandemic vaccine can do, I hope that by raising money for Alzheimer’s research, that we can do our bit to help find a preventative and cure 🧡