A father has raised more than £ 35,000 for research in a rare degenerative disease in three weeks since the diagnosis of his one -year -old son.
28 -year -old Harrison Dods signed up to run Yorkshire Marathon with nine of his friends, his son Charlie was diagnosed with a poleg mitochondrial disorder.
Mr. Dods, his wife Alli and his two sons spent a week’s holiday in Greece, but when they returned home, they fell ill with the flu.
Charlie began to experience the myoclonic shock and was taken to the hall Royal Information, before the Leeds General Information spent eight days in an induced coma, while their diagnosis was confirmed.
Mr. Dods said, “He was shifted to the intensive care unit of Leeds General Information on Thursday, and then he remained medicalily motivated for eight days, while he tried to understand what was going on,” Shri Dods said.
“As we were leaving, we were pulled into a room and said that we have got the results on another test, and it seems that Charlie has found a rare mitochondrial position called poleg and there is no effective treatment and it is incurable.
“Symptoms over time will hold her body and cause regression.”
Five days later, Mr. Dods, who work in construction management and competing in Hyrox competitions, decided to start a money raising challenge.
He said: “I was text to a friend who is in London. He is doing an ultra-marathon in Slovenia next month and we started saying, ‘Let’s try and try to raise a little money. Let’s do a little run.
“Till 20:00, we had a money raising page and we agreed to every £ 2,000.
“We shared the page, it went live and went to bed, woke up the next morning and for our surprise, we already crossed the mark of £ 4,000 within 12 hours.
“And then it was almost the same as opened in terms of floods in terms of generosity and support, as we met 48 hours later and we broke the mark of £ 25,000.
“On seven days we crossed the mark of £ 33,000.”
From Driffield, the family, expecting the money will fund research to find a treatment and effective treatment for the situation.
Meanwhile, they are meeting with experts from all over the world to find a way to help Charlie.
“We are talking to professors in Helsinki, in Norway, in Australia, Canada, Switzerland, United States,” said Mr. Dods.
“And we have got very good support, but also confirmed how rare the situation is.
“A lot of science is dedicated to more common diseases.
“We are convinced that some extensive research is going on around the world and we are not far from effective treatment and is believed to have a treatment.”
The money raised from the marathon to be held in York on 19 October, an American organization will go to the Polug Foundation, funding families and supports families.
“Charlie is currently happy,” said Mr. Dods.
“He is smiling. He looks painful.
“He is still very charlie that he was before 9 July.
“We are taking it a day a day and focusing on here and now, and enjoying the moment with it.”
