A dad is running two marathons in memory of his daughter who sadly passed away age 20 due to heart problems. Toyota UK worker, Dwayne Poyser, 55, of Long Eaton, will be running both the London and Manchester marathons this year to raise money for the British Heart Foundation in memory of Lauryn Taylor-Poyser, who sadly passed away in February 2021.
Lauryn, of Arnold, was born with dilated cardiomyopathy, a condition where the heart becomes enlarged and cannot pump properly. This led to Lauryn being in and out of hospital and on heart failure medication for most of her life.
When she was 18 her condition deteriorated and she was placed on the urgent heart transplant list, and she had the transplant on April 26, 2019. Dwayne said: "Over the course of the next 22 months Lauryn was doing well.
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“She had already achieved great A-level results despite everything and was offered a place at Sheffield Hallam University to study Photography." Lauryn studied A-levels at Redhill Academy and "loved music."
Dwayne added: "I took her to a lot of gigs, and also because of her interest in photography certainly prior to going to uni she used to go to gigs in Nottingham and do gig photography, so she did that quite a lot. Lauryn started her course at Sheffield, made lots of friends and was doing well on her course, however she sadly passed away on February 7, 2021.
Dwayne said: "It was absolutely devastating. Lauryn was such a resilient, strong person and was loving being a young independent woman and university life.
“As a family it was so tough. A very hard, emotional time for us all, as it would be for any family”.
Dwayne was a casual runner before Lauryn’s transplant, but has now taken it up more seriously in his efforts to give something back, and will also be running The Great North Run in September 2023 in addition to the marathons. Dwayne has so far raised more than £1,300 for the British Heart Foundation.
He said: "I want to give something back and I just thought rather than just doing one marathon I would do two. I have always wanted to do London and I did Manchester once before.
"This year I am raising money for the British Heart Foundation and two years ago I raised money for Papworth Hospital in Cambridge which is where she had her heart transplant and next year or possibly 2025 my aim is to raise money for Heartlink, which was based at the Glenfield Hospital in Leicester but is now the Best Royal Infirmary as they had a massive part of Lauryn's early life."
Dwayne said he had chosen to fundraise for foundation because of the “incredible work they do" funding researchers who are trying to find new cures and treatments for heart and circulatory diseases. He said: "I just appreciate the research that BHF do on heart problems and the development they do in trying to decrease the risk of heart attacks and heart problems generally and that's really important to me because of Lauryn.
"She was on anti-heart medication all of her life and once she had the transplant in 2019 she was then on stronger medication to stop the heart being rejected by other organs in the body and to prevent her having heart failure. She was just amazingly strong and took it in her stride really."
British Heart Foundation events manager Ellie Mynes said taking part in two marathons so close together to raise money for the charity was a wonderful way for Dwayne to honour the memory of his daughter. Ellie said: "She sounds like an amazing young woman.
"Losing Lauryn must have been incredibly hard for all of her family so we’re really grateful to Dwayne for taking on these runs for the British Heart Foundation. I am sure Lauryn would have been proud of him, but also happy to know that the funds he raises will go towards important research into heart disease to help people like her.
“Good luck Dwayne – all of us here at Team BHF will be cheering you on every step of the way”. Speaking of the money he has already raised, Dwayne added: "It's absolutely amazing, the fact that people are donating in hard times like it is at the moment it's amazing to think that people can be so generous."
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