My dad passed away in February last year. In memory of my father, I wanted to do something positive to mark the first anniversary of his death. Myself and my wife decided to undertake a virtual challenge to walk / run / cycle the distance from Lands End to John O’ Groats, a total distance of 1,083.8 miles between us, to raise awareness of the illness and some much needed funds to support PID UK.
Dad was diagnosed with Common Variable Immune Deficiency (CVID) in 2014, however from discussion with specialists he was likely to have shown first symptoms some 30 years before this. The irony being that despite the name, it really isn’t that common, and is even not well known by most primary care doctors. This made living with CVID quite difficult due to the lack of information and knowledge of its symptoms, as they are shared with many other illnesses.
PID UK provided support and information to my dad with advice relating to coping with the life long illness on a day by day basis.
This is the first challenge of this type we have undertaken, also having 3 children aged 10 to 16, finding time is a challenge in itself. Neither of us have also been on a bicycle for 20 odd years!
We managed to complete the challenge, a whopping 1083.8 miles in 31 days. Thank you so much for everyone who sponsored our challenge, with all donations going to PID UK, it’s very gratefully received.