My Story

The Children's Liver Disease Foundation (CLDF) is a charity very close to mine and Josie's hearts and when they offered me a place at this year's London Marathon I jumped at the chance.

This is my first marathon and after a year of no exercise, lack of sleep and a really dubious diet, this feels daunting to be honest. However, any feelings of apprehension I may have are far outweighed by my eagerness to raise some funds and awareness for CLDF as a thank you for the guidance, support and information they provided whilst our baby Rudy was in hospital.

Ten-month-old Rudy was born with a rare liver disease called Biliary Atresia - here's his story:

Now an incredibly happy and properly cheeky little boy who makes Josie and I immensely proud, his first few months were very tough. Rudy needed an operation on his bowel the day he was born, which necessitated a month in intensive care at Brighton Hospital. It was there that doctors suspected he may also have a serious problem with his liver, and he was transferred as an emergency to the specialist children’s liver unit at Kings College Hospital in London, where it was confirmed that Rudy had the rare liver disease, Biliary Atresia. Rudy soon had an operation called a 'Kasai' - and after more extremely difficult days we were free to go home with our baby, for the first time after 8 weeks he spent hospital.

So why have I decided to run a marathon?

"When you see your 8-week-old baby so helpless and vulnerable in hospital it changes the way you look at life. I've now got a real hunger to help children and babies with serious liver disease as well as the charity, so that they can continue to offer amazing support to sufferers of liver disease (and their families) throughout their lives."

Why raise funds for the CLDF?

“Rudy’s treatment at Kings was exceptional. In addition to the medical care, staff there told us about how CLDF could help us and we found all their information, both in the leaflets and on the website, to be essential to us in keeping us away from Google and instead having reliable and reassuring resources. It’s wonderful to know that this support is there for families in our situation."