Hello, my name is Darren, not sure where or how to start but as with many many people here on Go Fund Me mine and my wife’s lives have become difficult so to be on here asking for help has taken a very large gulp of pride and a prayer with the hope that people out there can help my wife and I.

It started September 2023 when during a shift as a lorry driver I began to experience double vision on and off, being worried I visited spec savers who informed me that I needed reading glasses and that I may have eye strain, I thought “great! It’s sorted”, well, no, this was just the beginning, my site got steadily worse over the coming week to the point one morning driving into work my vision was completely double!, I pulled over and called my doctor who insisted I go into the surgery straight away to see him! “my god! How often does that happen?” I’m now beginning worry! So I leave my van on the side of the road and get my self to the doc’s where he does numerous tests where he diagnoses “diplopia” which is a broad term used for double vision, he then tells me I have to go straight into hospital from the doctors surgery “I’m now even

more worried”, I arrive at William Harvey here in Ashford were I’m admitted.

After a worrying 3 day stay in hospital involving MRI and CT scans, various X-rays, blood and heart checks my wife and I are told I have “Myasthenia Gravis”, a life long incurable Autoimmune disease that causes severe muscle weakness starting with the eyes then progressing to the rest of the body, I expect like most of you my wife and I had never heard of it but from that moment our world collapsed! I wasn’t able to work from the day I came out of hospital and my symptoms progressed to problems with talking, chewing “I couldn’t even lick my lips, the inside of my mouth and teeth”, swallowing became difficult and scarily on occasions breathing, after a few weeks I ventured out to walk our dog to discover after a short distance my legs become numb and I couldn’t walk far so the disease had progressed yet further still.

The symptoms caused all manner of problems, due to my vision I couldn’t cut food “discovered by cutting fingers on my left hand”, couldn’t pour water “discovered by pouring boiling water on the kitchen side” so my wife had to help shower me “as I kept tripping in and out of the bath” and prepare my daily food needs before she left for work, even simple phone calls became an upsetting task as after a few minutes talking my speech become slurred and I couldn’t be understood.

A year on and I’m now on heavy medication taking 7 different medications numerous times a day to help suppress the disease which involves suppressing my immune system, they have bought it under relative control of sorts, my vision is significantly better and chewing and swallowing is much better but the myasthenia is still lurking in the back ground to remind me it’s there, usually culminating in speech problems and body muscle weakness, my days are now average to bad depending on how tired or stressed I am, life as my wife and I had known it is now significantly more difficult and unpredictable, thankfully a charity “MYAWARE” has been there to help and assist my wife and I in times of extreme worry to whom we thank gratefully.

As you can imagine not being able to work has caused significant financial issues, some of which we’ve been able to muddle through and make excuses and late payments to various utilities and other companies, but, the much larger bills have become nigh impossible, this is where I get to my/our van, it’s financed with VWFS “VOLKS WAGEN FINANCE SERVICES” and I’m/we’re very very close to owning it outright, £2,646.00 close! But they’ve now called in the loan and want the money “now”, over the past year we’ve muddled through paying what we can when we can but they’ve now insisted it paid or sold! my wife and I are dependant on our van for generally getting around and for taking our dog out “our beloved “Mac”, a very cuddly and loving St Bernard”, we’ve been able to do away with many things over the past year but the van we simply can’t!.

So, here it is, my wife and I are praying for help, in the form of £2,646 to allow the van to be ours, please can you help?

Thank you so much for taking the time to read this, we’re both so grateful.