I spent far too many a year at university partying away, didn’t we all? In the latter years as a sub warden, I was responsible for making sure others had just as much fun as I did – yes, such an onerous task. One such person in my final few months was Carla Rankin, who I didn’t know for long, but still managed to spend several evenings yapping away about the not so nice stuff life threw at us and how we’d both managed to deal with it in such a positive manner.

Carla dealt with epilepsy perhaps even more impressively than I could with my spinal injury, as she did so without an ounce of sarcasm that you’d normally expect to come pouring out of my mouth. Last month Carla sadly passed away. Her family still don’t know what triggered her seizures and I can easily imagine there are many other families out there who are in a similar position. In my current predicament I’m limited in what I can do for fundraising. I can’t run a marathon (my battery would run out halfway through); climb a mountain (unless it’s got wheelchair access, in which case anyone could do it!); do the ice bucket challenge (it LITERALLY could kill me!)

So I’ve decided on a series of challenges, designed to test many lifestyle choices many of you know I would find very hard to change. Next month I will take on ‘Movember’, followed by ‘Dry January’ and ‘Veg Feb’ (such is my hatred of all things healthy, I’ll be delving into a different portion of fruit or veg each day – I’m already having nightmares about the sprout on day 28). I’ll be keeping a diary of the challenges including a timelapse video, and daily updates will be on my Twitter and JustGiving pages. PAs will be the arbiters of how successful I am, and I’ve waived their confidentiality clause. Anything you can donate I’m sure would be gratefully welcomed by both Epilepsy Action and Carla’s family.

https://www.justgiving.com/Rob-Moriarty

Rm