My Story

Hi all, I've always wanted to do THE Marathon. But with health i've never been able to, I have just never been fit enough.

I have congenital heart disease, with means I was born with a heart defect. All from birth I was told that i had something wrong, but for 10 years the doctors never knew what. Only until my mum asked for a second opinion did we get referred to GOSH. Their state of the art equipment confirmed the worst- I had Aortic Stenosis, a narrowing of the aortic valve in my heart. So, in 1992 at the age of 10, I was operated on to repair the valve.

 I then continued to see the heart hospital but for all them years I struggled with my breathing, but I just thought, well that's because of my heart so I have to deal with it. Fast forward to my 37th birthday and the doctors confirmed it was time to replace the valve with a mechanical one. This was hard to take in, and pretty scary. Covid hit and the operation was cancelled and moved six times, but finally in September 2020 I was operated on. It wasn't the best experience being away from any family and friends for two weeks in isolation due to the rules surrounding covid. I was due to be released twice but had setbacks of nerve pain and then Transient global amnesia which wasn't fun, but later cleared and sent home to recover.

Learning to live with warfarin daily and other meds was strange, but then I started to heal and was able to take a deep breath again!

I started running to be fit and found I could last A LOT longer than before. This was completely new to me!

Since then I have completed the Ride100 and 3 Peaks 24 hour challenge. Some things I would never have considered.

So I applied to the BHF, and heard nothing. But on the 3rd year anniversary of my operation I got the confirmation email. It was fate!

So now I want to raise as much money as I possibly can for this charity that has helped me throughout my life. 

I best start training then!