The ALS Ice Bucket
Challenge – We Did It!
DJ Forrest, Mickie
Newton, John Bond-Winstone
& Christopher Fain
‘DJ, Head of Project:
Torchwood. Outside the TV and beyond the
Web.
Joining the human
race to raise awareness of Motor Neurone Disease.
The twenty-first
century is where changes are made
And Project:
Torchwood is ready!’
Yep, that was my speech
before a bucket of ice and cold water was tipped over my head for the
#ALSIceBucketChallenge on 24th August 2014. I had other words to say but funnily enough,
gasping like a fish out of water, trying to think straight isn’t the easiest
after an experience like that. But then
there’s also a reason why the ice bucket challenge was set up. A person who suffers from Motor Neurone
Disease has trouble breathing, towards the later stages of the disease, so the
ice bucket challenge gives the contestant if you will, that same weird feeling
of coldness, shock and inability to function.
Only your experience lasts mere seconds compared to a sufferer of
MND.
There is no cure for
Motor Neurone Disease at the moment, but the challenge helps make people aware
of it, and to donate.
Despite the chill of the
ice and cold water I am actually proud of myself. I helped to raise awareness, we all did,
every one of us who accepted the challenge.
It was fun. And we hope that
everyone reading this will either accept their challenges with grace, or
donate, as although there is no cure yet, perhaps with the research, one day
there will be, and we just have to have faith.
In America, the ALS
charity has raised over $100million. We
decided to do our challenge for the UK charity (MND) because our graphics
artist, writer and PR, Mickie Newton knows only too well about the
disease.
Here’s
Mickie's story:
When I first started to
see all the #IceBucketChallenge videos for #ALS I had no clue what it was. So I
decided to look it up. It was obviously important as it had gone viral. ALS is
for Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis or Lou Gehrig's disease, so named after the
baseball player. I read on and discovered in the UK we know it as something
else. Here it is #MND or Motor Neurone Disease; if you visit the MND
Associations web page you will discover that ALS and MND is the same thing.
Once I discovered what
ALS was, it became personal. 15 years ago Robert Newton, at just 65 years old,
died of this awful disease. Robert, or Bob as he was better known by, was my
great uncle on my mother’s side; he was also her favourite uncle, with just 16
years between them. I remember him both as he was before MND took hold of him,
a warm, strong and funny man, and after it had ravaged his body to someone who
needed 24 hour care, who couldn't speak, feed himself and so forth.
Until this 'craze'
started few people knew about it and very little research done to find out more
about the disease and how to maybe find a cure. Now ALS and MND are on
everybody's lips and people are now becoming more aware of what it is and how
cruel and unforgiving this disease is. And hopefully from this, those that be
will decide to do more research and hopefully find a cure.
There are those out
there who are fed up with all these videos and have even taken to the internet
to vent their anger, saying that celebrities are only doing this to pump up
their ego's. Well to them I give you a message...
In the words of the 12th
Doctor...Shut up! You obviously don't know someone who is suffering from MND or
who has died from it and if you do, you should know better and sympathise and
rejoice in the amount of publicity this disease is receiving. I don't care
about a celebrity's motivation behind their actions; I only care that NOW
people know what this disease is and that MAYBE some more research will be done
instead of putting it at the back of the queue as if sufferers and their loved
ones don't matter. So do something useful with your computer and make a
donation to either the MND Association in the UK or the ALS Association in the
US.
Thank you for reading
Mickie
Newton aka Toshiko
John
also took the challenge, (nominated by Mickie)
Well I accepted the
challenge because I felt it was a worthy cause that needs to have
attention. The challenge also made you
feel what it can be like to have the treatment that is given to patients who
have ALS/MND.
For me, some, who did
the challenge, were just jumping on the bandwagon and not promoting what it is
about so I wanted to actually promote a worthwhile cause.
John
Bond-Winstone aka The Doctor
For the US event you can
find out more here.
Go on, do it, it’s just
water...and ICE! And if you are worried
about wasting water, then be sure that if you do plan to jump in a river or
watercourse, or even the sea, that you have someone with you for safety
reasons. Don’t just opt to jump in with no idea what lies beneath the
water. Be safe!
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