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Looks like I'm doing the leicester half marathon as well in October!!!! Gawd struth, I sure do know how to make trouble for myself!!!!!

RIGHT!!!!!! After drunkenly deciding that I was going to do the great north run with my mate Phil on New Years eve 2014, I finally started training for it today (yes that's right, less than 3 months before the actual run! God help me!!)

I am going to attempt to reach my £500 for CORPAL again! It is so dear to my heart and although there are so many worthy charities out there, corpal is run completely by parents and carers of kids and young adults with acc, and it is such a scary and unknown condition from a parents point of view. It's literally a waiting game! I wouldn't know where to start helping someone else because i have faced so many battles trying to help my little sausage marwood, so the group of people involved in this charity deserve every bit of help they can get!

This is a way for me to give a little bit back and help support people that I have empathy and understanding for! It's a really scary place when your baby's brain is wired up differently to everyone else's (literally) and it's very very difficult to understand until you live with someone with acc because every case is different and so there is no definitive prognoses! 

Marwood by the way is doing brilliantly! He is still on the Sen register with school but with the help of a fantastic year one teacher and a brilliant after school tutor he is learning to read and write and his confidence has grown beyond my expectations! He has always done more than I once ever dared dream he would do! He has formed some lovely relationships with other kids at school, and actually you can't really tell there is anything wrong with him! He's a bit eccentric but then so am I, and he's a happy little boy with a lovely bright future ahead of him!

If you can spare just a penny to help me support corpal then I would muchly appreciate it xxx

Marwoods tale:

Back in June 2009 I had my gorgeous baby boy Marwood Ashley and to look at him you would think he was perfect. He was perfect. 10 fingers, 10 toes, fuzzy blonde hair and a little piggy nose!  Only myself, his dad and a few close family and friends knew different. Not that I cared one bit the second I met him.

My short lived nightmare began at my twenty week scan. For some reason, I was unusually nervous, especially as it was my first baby and I didn't really know what I was expecting, I just knew they were gonna tell me something was wrong. And they did. They couldn't see my baby's corpus collosum and he appeared to have more fluid on his brain than he should do, but more on that later. 

I was sent to the queens medical centre Nottingham for an MRI scan, which confirmed that my poor baby did in fact have agenesis of the corpus callosum along with ventricolomegly (which is basically excess fluid on his brain), which could potentially become something called hydrocephalus once he was born, which would have meant he would need a shunt fitted to drain the fluid from his brain into another part of his body, thus preventing further damage, if any, being caused to his little brain.  

what is agenesis corpus callosum?

well, the charity that I'm fundraising for put it like this:

"Agenesis of the Corpus Callosum (ACC) is a rare neurological condition in which the Corpus Callosum, the major “pathway“ for information which links the two hemispheres of the brain, fails to develop fully. The condition is usually diagnosed by CT (Computer Tomographic) or MRI (Magnetic Resonance Imaging) scan."

The effects of the condition are variable; ranging from normal development (where the condition may be undetected or be revealed incidentally), through mild developmental delay to severe learning difficulties, epilepsy, visual impairment and delayed motor development. There may be other brain malformations present, for example microcephaly (small brain) or hydrocephalus (obstruction of the flow of fluid in the head).

As you can see from that description, me and marwoods dad had a bit of a waiting game with regards to how well Marwood was going to be when he was born.  We didn't know if we would be able to tell there was something wrong with him, we didn't know how physically well he was going to be, I can honestly say it was the most traumatic time of my life, which didnt end until the second he was born, 5 weeks premature on the 20th June 2009. 

All my worries and upset just melted away. He was amazing, and the only treatment he received in hospital was for jaundice, despite being prem and having the potential to have so many problems.  He was home with me a week later, and apart from the hospital tests and assessments he had, I totally forgot that there was meant to be anything wrong with him. He walked at 13 months, said his first words at 12 months and was discharged from the paediatrician at 2 1/2 years.

Fast forward to Jan 2013 and Marwood isn't quite as out of the woods as I thought. Physically he is a healthy boy (besides his penchant for chips and fish fingers), but he has had some problems at school highlighted and is back with the peadiatrician.  Marwood will be ok tho. Just as I knew they were going to tell me something was wrong at my 20 week scan, I know that Marwood will be ok in The future. And I know he is going to prove everyone wrong, just as he did when he was born. He is a funny, musical, cheeky little boy, who pushes the boundarys and surprises me with his loveliness every single day, as all children should.

He has his quirks, but that's what I love most about him.

I am raising money for Corpal, which is a non profit support group ran by parents and careers of children with acc.  It can be very worrying at times having a child with acc because every single case is different, and there is really no way anyone can judge how affected an individual is going to be.  And I know for myself, doing the right thing for Marwood has sometimes been a major task, so for other parents and carers to give their time to something like this is really quite amazing, as I'm sure some of these children may not be as lucky as Marwood is. Please give a bit of cash to help children like Marwood and to give mummy's like me The knowledge and support they need with their lovely children.

I am running the great north 10k in September and I've never ran more than 5k before so this is gonna be a bugger of a challenge! My family are all Geordies and I remember watching my mum and dad run the proper great north run when I was little. I dare not try and manage the big one yet, but to run across the Tyne bridge and know I'm doing it for Marwood will be the most amazing feeling in the world!

Thanks for reading my mammoth essay! xxxxxx

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