Martine, my wife suffers from Primary Sclerosing Cholangitis (PSC), something that she once likened to “living with a time bomb in your chest and not knowing if and when it’ll go off”.

PSC is a rare disease that has no known cause, cure or treatment. It causes the bile ducts both inside and outside the liver to become scarred, narrowed and eventually blocked. As more ducts become blocked, bile becomes trapped and damages the liver, leading to cirrhosis and liver failure.

PSC Symptoms often include:

•    Chronic, debilitating fatigue

•    Severe, uncontrollable itching

•    Dangerous infections of the bile ducts

•    Pain in the body’s Upper Right Quadrant

•   Jaundice

PSC sufferers frequently have associated autoimmune diseases, most commonly inflammatory bowel diseases such as Crohn’s Disease or Ulcerative Colitis. As well as all that they also have a significant increase in the risks of bowel, liver and pancreatic cancers. Basically, you just don’t want to get PSC.

Martine was diagnosed in 2007 with PSC when our daughter, Sophie was 15 months old. We’d never heard of PSC and within Singapore (where we lived at the time) there were no other sufferers or meaningful medical experience of the disease.  Our family went through a very difficult period where our outlook was unsure and “Googling” PSC just delivered inconsistent, depressing information and a bleak prognosis. PSC Support gave us information and support to help us all come to terms with Martine’s illness.

PSC Support is a UK charity, totally run by volunteers, that helps people affected by PSC, including sufferers themselves, and their families. PSC Support makes a real difference by providing  information and support to those affected by PSC, promoting PSC and organ donation awareness, developing effective partnerships with those involved with medical treatment and help support vitally needed research into PSC.They’re a small organisation that totaly “punches above its weight”.

We know at first hand the how frightening and isolating a diagnosis of PSC is for both the sufferer, their family and friends and the difficulty associated with having an uncertain future. That’s why Martine and I both volunteer for PSC Support and why I’m going to use my Kilimanjaro climb to raise awareness and funds for PSC Support. As a cause it simply couldn’t get any more personal for my family and I.

Hotel Spa
Today Martine, my wife is representing PSC Support at a British Liver Trust event in Northamptonshire. Whilst she’s “working” at the BLT event I’m in our hotel room watching the Spa Belgium F1 GP qualifying on my iPad (gotta love Sky’s F1 coverage and their Sky Go mobile viewing BTW) and been researching online to find somewhere to go for a ride. I’ve also been thinking about my goals and motivations to climb Kili.

Tick Tock…
I haven’t booked the climb yet but my current thinking is to go in Sept ’13 by which time I’ll be 42. September next year gives me 12 months to get fit, prepare and fundraise along with the fact that Sept is still in the more desirable “dry season” in Tanzania. One of my motivations for the climb is certainly a desire for a new “project” to aim at and focus on. I do sometimes miss some of the recreational activities I used to do like my flying or skydiving but I found they didn’t balance with family life or studying for my MBA. With my studies completed in ’11 I think there might be some space for a little adventurous project like this. I know I’m not getting any younger so why not just crack on and do it now? I joked to Martine that doing “Kili” would be cheaper than buying a Porsche or many other stereotypical “mid life crisis” acts!

Lightening The Load
To paraphrase a joke from the English comedian Roy “chubby” brown: “I’m not fat; I just have a problem with my feet. I can’t keep them out of the pie shop”. Starting from a weight of around 17 Stone (108 KG) I have begun watching what I eat / drink as well as getting into some regular exercises as I’m going to need to lose some weight . I’m targeting myself to get down to 14 Stone ( 89 KG) for the climb. It would be nice to look in a mirror and feel a bit more positive about my body shape. Even at 14 stone weight my body mass index would be “overweight” but considerably more favourable that my current “obese” 😦

Cashing in
So whilst I clearly have some personal reasons to attempt Kilimanjaro I also see it at a chance to draw awareness and raise fund in support of those, such as Martine who suffer from Primary Sclerosing Cholangitis. PSC Support, the UK charity that helps anyone affected by PSC and raises money for research is a small, volunteer based organisation that has a big job to do. If I can help pull together £4K from my friends, colleagues, acquaintances, family or blog  vistitors then we can all make a tangible, positive difference to the work and research PSC Support does. There is a donate page on this site if you’d like to help, thanks.

Right, Jenson Button of McLaren has just got pole for tomorrow’s race so I’m happy chap and now off for a ride. Bye for now.