Harrison is my gorgeous 6 year old nephew and he has an equally gorgeous 4 year old brother William. Harrison was born the day after my birthday in July, which makes us both Cancers, which as a water sign I hope bodes well for the BIG SWIM.
Sadly in January 2011 our family received the terrible news that Harrison has Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy. At the moment Harrison looks healthy but like all boys with Duchenne he'll die in his late teens or early twenties from heart or respiratory failure.
The terrible fact is we have the technology to tackle this devastating disease, but we don't have the funding we need to do it quickly. Since the diagnosis family and friends have gone into overdrive to raise money to fight this horrible disease with thousands raised already.
On that first day when my sister told me about Harrison's illness, through the numb shock, the sadness and the anger I knew that there would be fundraising and I knew to do my part I would swim something... anything... to help raise money. When I moved to Dubai in August last year I discovered no-one had yet swum around The World in Dubai so I naively made that my goal without fully understanding what was involved. My hope is that by doing something that has never been done before it will raise lots of awareness and money for Harrison's Fund to help save my nephews' life and thousands of kids like him.
Harrison is a great swimmer and has been swimming since he was a baby. One of the things people often ask when I tell them about the swim challenge is if I am good swimmer. Mum says I was a real water baby when I was little and I did a bit of swimming at school, but school was 14 years ago and there hasn't been much since!
At 25km though, the swim will be as much mental strength as physical ability and I hope and believe that with Harrison as my inspiration I will achieve it.
