Thanks for visiting my JustGiving page! I am raising money by running a marathon for Huddersfield & Calderdale NHS Foundation Trust whose intensive care unit, to put it bluntly, kept me alive when I had far too close an encounter with the other side earlier this year!

Obviously this year has been sh*t for everyone! And especially for all those working in the NHS, so my plan is to raise as much money as possible to give back to the people who not only saved my life but a huge number of others during this whole Covid disaster, as from personal experience, without the care and expertise of the doctors/nurses in the ICU in Huddersfield, and the trust in general, I’m quite certain I wouldn’t be here.

For those who were not aware of my situation I randomly fell ill at the end of January and from going to A&E with severe back pain one night, the doctors quickly identified my health was deteriorating fast so immediately induced me into a coma to get control of the situation. The sequence of events as to how I fell ill is still not particularly clear but I was found to have MRSA PVL, double pneumonia, sepsis and basically a bunch of things that without the top notch treatment I received should of really been lights out for me.

3 weeks and a few close calls later I was brought out of the coma very confused (and verbally abusive apparently but I don’t remember that - blame the drugs!) to begin the recovery process. My lungs had taken a beating and my legs were mostly numb from the nerve damage sustained at some point in all of this so with time, patience (on behalf of all the staff), plenty of medication and as much physiotherapy as I could tolerate each day we started to make some progress.

At the start of March I’d been moved from Huddersfield ICU to a respiratory ward in Calderdale Royal as my lungs were still the immediate concern but at this point I still couldn’t walk. Although I was no longer in ICU, we were warned that my lungs were unlikely to fully repair and the outlook regarding the nerve damage in my back & legs was pretty unclear.

Then Covid hit and everyone’s world got turned upside down! I was back home with family recovering in late March and started to get my legs back around May/June. The exercise regime involved a 10 minute walk around the village before I was knackered, and this has continued to gradually improve to the point where I am back playing sport and running again.

Now, I feel the best way to give back and make the biggest impact to the people who kept me alive is to raise as much money as possible for the trust to ensure the hospitals have everything they need to be able to help others and save more lives therefore now I am back on my feet I’m going to run a marathon finishing at Huddersfield Royal Infirmary on 20th December 2020.

Hopefully I’ll get to thank all the staff in person on the day but otherwise I want to say a massive Thank You to everyone at both Huddersfield Royal Infirmary & Calderdale Royal for everything. You guys are amazing and I definitely owe you one!

Here is the link to the route:

https://www.plotaroute.com/route/1371085?units=km

And the 10k meeting place for those who want to run it in with us:

https://goo.gl/maps/Q6HpbymPbdsUofHGA

We are setting off at 8.30am so aim to be at the 10k spot around 11.15-11.45ish and finish at HRI at 12.30-12.45ish all being well!