My Skydive for Alzheimer’s Story – Six Years On…

Good morning everyone,

I hope you’re having a brilliant start to the week 🙂

Six years ago yesterday, I jumped out of a plane at 12,000 feet over Swansea…

You read that right, I was doing a charity skydive for the Alzheimer’s Society, which we’re going to be taking a look at in more detail in today’s blog!

Hello and Welcome to Sweeney’s Blogs!

Isn’t time flying by so quickly these days? The topic of flying brings us nicely back to the topic of today’s blog. If you haven’t heard this story before, you may be asking, “James, why on Earth did you jump out of a plane?”

Rest assured, I hadn’t lost my marbles, it was very much a planned excursion. To provide a little bit of context, when I was growing up, my grandmother, Nana, was the person I was the closest to in the world. We used to tell each other everything, until one day, when she was diagnosed to Alzheimer’s disease.

Nana bravely fought the disease for nearly ten years, ultimately passing away from the condition last January. When she was first diagnosed, we all really struggled to come to terms with the news, we didn’t really know what to do or who we could turn to about it all. I found that my emotions were starting to spiral a little bit, which subsequently caused my stutter to start acting up as well.

I decided one day I needed to do something, so on a hail Mary, I phoned the Alzheimer’s Society. I started explaining my situation to the lady that answered the phone and looking back, I could be more grateful that I did. She was so kind and patient, listening to my concerns before reassuring me that I was alone – this was something I could and would find my way through.

I would go on to phone the Alzheimer’s Society several times over the ten years that my grandmother had the condition, sometimes to vent, sometimes to ask for help, or sometimes to speak to people that weren’t in my close family that could actually understand and relate to what I was saying. They were an incredible support for me and I could not be more thankful for all of the help I received over the years.

Back in early 2018, I decided that I wanted to do something to give back to them – to help provide them with more money so they could support other people who were going through a similar experience to what my family and I went through. Having done a load of different fundraising events over the years, I wanted to do something different, something that was going to test me, so I ultimately decided to do a skydive.

After being cancelled five or six times due to poor weather conditions, I finally got to do my “Skydive for Alzheimer’s” on the 20th of October 2018. How did it go, I hear you ask? Well, this video should wrap it all up nicely:

I managed to raise over £900, jumping out of a plane at 12,000 at Swansea Airport for a truly amazing cause. Seeing all of the incredible views, all of the adrenaline pumping through your body as you jump and look back and say “I actually did that” is beyond crazy. Words will never do justice to how proud I felt after the jump.

Every year, I like to do a little reflective blog on this story, it’s got to be one of my favourites. I hope you’ve enjoyed giving it a read, and I will hopefully see you again here very soon.

If you would like to share your thoughts on this story or my page, please do feel free to, all feedback is welcome 🙂

Thanks for reading and I hope you have a lovely day!

James