Olympic sprinter Iwan Thomas to run London Marathon to raise awareness of group B Strep infection
Iwan Thomas told us, “When my son Teddy was born on 29th December 2018, I was the happiest man in the world. I suddenly knew what true unconditional love was, he came out and I burst into tears. I went home to have a shower and got a phone call from the hospital. They said please come back, Teddy’s sick and in intensive care. I later learned he’d got group B Strep infection, something I’d never heard of before. It was the worst day of my life, looking at my everything covered in tubes in an incubator,
fighting for his life. I wanted to swap places with him. I’m not religious, but I was saying: ‘Please God, take me instead.’ If the infection had spread, we knew that even if Teddy survived, he could be brain damaged. For my partner’s sake, I put on a tough facade but inside I was crumbling. Thankfully after an agonising 10 days in hospital, Teddy pulled through and came home with us. He’s since made an amazing recovery and is doing well. ” Find out more about Iwan’s fundraising at justgiving.com/fundraising/gbssiwanthomas.
I’m planning to run the London Marathon in October to raise awareness of group B Strep, and funds for the charity Group B Strep Support, who do a brilliant job fighting for better prevention and treatment for Strep B in the UK.
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