Dementia NZ Fundraiser: "Mini Ox-man for Gramps!"

Talofa lava, Malo e lelei, Kia ora and Gidday friends and family!

I'm starting a Givealittle fundraiser for Dementia NZ!

I guess things like this only really pop up when it hits close to home and for me and my family it’s affected my Grandpa or “Gramps” as we like to call him. Earlier this year Gramps was diagnosed with dementia and in March a slip and a fall smacking his head on an oven heavily exacerbated it.

Up until roughly April my understanding of dementia was that I thought it just made people a bit forgetful. It was only over a Sunday roast with my parents and sister did they explain the full extent of what dementia meant. It wasn’t that it just made people a bit forgetful, people actually lost the majority of their memories – this new info hit me pretty hard and fair to say I broke down a bit.

Doing some reflecting on Gramps’ I remembered him always going for runs growing up and working out in his garage gym. All through my years he had always been my prime example and inspiration of doing volunteering work in the Wellington region.

In late November is a local Canterbury “triathlon” kind of event called the Ox-man and the mini comprises of a 750m swim, 46km bike and a 7.8km run. Fair to say this is going to be a hell of a challenge!

You can follow a bit of this journey on my Instagram from my last fundraiser “dantedoeshealthy”.

Fa’afetai lava, malo aupito, ma te wa and see you soon!