A few years ago as a family our life fell apart when my daughter Charlotte-Ann developed cancer and later was diagnosed with an incredibly rare genetic disorder called Cowden Syndrome. This disorder means she is at risk of growing tumours both benign and cancerous just about anywhere in her body, it is a terrifying and often debilitating condition with sufferers facing countless surgeries throughout their life time. Her cancer left her with chronic fatigue syndrome and postural orthstatic tachychardia syndrome. She is now too disabled by these to attend school and has been homeschooled for the past year, her life has never been the same and never will be again.
This will be my second year of fundraising in aid of PTEN research in the hope of helping towards finding a cure or treatment not only for my daughter but anyone with a genetic cancer causing disorder. This year will be a giving up rather a doing, I will spend 12 months without refined sugar or related products or a single alcoholic drink. Starting the 8th of June 2019 and ending the 8th of June 2020. I will be blogging about the experience here :-
https://cure4cowdens.blog/
That’s 1 Christmas, 1 Easter, 1 Halloween, 1 family holiday, 1 46th birthday, 6 family birthdays, many friends birthdays and Christmas parties, days out and 52 weekends without a single drink or cake. I’m actually a little nervous. It’s funny how attached we can become to foods especially around events.
Now for the rules, the not drinking part is simple…do not put alcoholic drink to mouth, do not drink. Sugar is more complex, avoiding it altogether is impossible so I am going to follow the general philosophy that natural sugars are fine whereas refined and sweeteners are not. Zero cakes, biscuits processed or junk foods. Any time I fail or "cheat" I pay a £20 fine into the fundraising for that day, which works out as a pretty expensive bar of chocolate! The exception being a period of serious illness.
I am this year raising funds for the international PTEN Harmatoma Tumor Syndrome Foundation with the hope that this will bring us all a little closer to a cure.
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