MUM Helen Bailey has proved her love for her daughter – by walking over searing hot coals.
The 53-year-old is so determined to find a way to beat childhood diabetes that she organised a huge event to raise money for the charity which supports her daughter Emma, nine.
Joined by dozens of other parents and friends of youngsters with the condition, she spent a day training for the scorching event in Salisbury and did the 10-yard walk, raising more than £11,000 for Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation.
Helen, a local government officer, said: ‘It was absolutely amazing.
‘I’m still buzzing from it now.
‘We spent all day going over the physics of it and were told that they would be heated to 600C.
’It was nerve-racking but they explained it was all about the speed and the pressure and that we’d be fine.
‘It didn’t seem very far until we were standing at the start of it and I went over it at quite a lick, I can tell you. Afterwards it was such a brilliant feeling I couldn’t stop bouncing around.
‘We all had a amazing time and it was for a great cause. We all felt so pumped afterwards.’
Emma was diagnosed with Type 1 diabetes when she was three years old.
She must prick her finger up to 10 times a day to check her glucose levels.
It means Helen, who is a mum of four, is constantly worried about her.
She believes her daughter’s best hope is for an artificial pancreas that would automatically check the levels while Emma sleeps to make sure they never get too high or low.
But it is a long way off without vital research and development.
Helen, of Linkenholt Way, Leigh Park, said: ‘I get up every single night to make sure she is safe. I never sleep a whole night. That’s why fundraising is so important.’
Go to jdrf.org.uk.
Comments