Muddy Care CIC is a specialist educational rehabilitation health and wellness service and community, for people of working age with chronic conditions, serious illnesses, disabilities and now Long Covid. Managed and delivered by professional education managers, teachers and outdoor educationalists, Muddy Care provides health and wellness tools, exercises, activities and strategies to help people manage their conditions more effectively and independently. Our provision includes outdoor education rehabilitation programmes, online educational services and a lifelong support & care community.

On 30th August 2021, our lovely Muddy participant Claire is climbing Cader Idris to raise money for Muddy Care. We wish her all the luck possible and we are so impressed by her adventurous spirit and exceptionally grateful for her desire to support us.

Diolch yn fawr iawn. Thank you very much.

A little word from our Muddy Participant Claire.

“Most of us know someone with a chronic/incurable illness, even if we do not realise it, as we invariably suffer in silence. The list of these illnesses is unfortunately very long and when we (a person with a chronic condition(s)) meets others with chronic conditions, we often find commonality with each other, even if our illnesses and/or conditions are different.

My chronic illness, Ulcerative Colitis, appeared from nowhere just over seven years ago. I was fit, very active and had boundless energy before it.

My amazing dad died out of the blue and I became ill from that day on.

My illness has no known cause, or cure. It is an auto immune disease which means that my body attacks healthy tissue in my colon and rectum.

I am on lifelong medication, which I have had to learn to increase and decrease, various types of medication, as and when needed. These include steroids when I have a big ‘flare’. I have been hospitalised twice, but thankfully no operations so far and also seem to be in ‘remission’ for the last two and a half years.

My symptoms include; internal pain, fatigue, brain fog, dizziness and sickly feelings, mouth ulcers, blepharitis, skin problems on my hands and feet, diarrhoea, ulcers in my colon that can cause mucus and pus, rectal bleeding and achy joints.

After lots of appointments, blood tests, flexi sigmoidoscopes, and colonoscopies, I had my diagnosis and meds. I was lucky enough to have a specialist IBD nurse who I had monthly appointments with for a very long time. They eventually became six monthly when my disease became more settled.

What I did not realise, was how much every area of my life would be so greatly affected. Such as, financially, socially, my mental health, relationships, and self-esteem. I generally found it hard to accept that I was now permanently different and that I could no longer always do exactly what I wanted, when I wanted.

Muddy Care is an amazing rehabilitation programme, that understands our challenges and gives us so many different support tools to help manage our conditions more easily and improve our general wellbeing, developed by a wonderful woman who is chronically ill herself.

Through the wonderful support, advice and tips from Muddy Care (my ‘muddies’ are my other ‘family’), I have learnt lots of things. A major learning tool is the importance to ‘rest’ more. Also, how to let go of the ‘guilt’ of not doing things all the time. This has all greatly improved my generally wellbeing.

I just want to raise more awareness of Muddy Care and therefore hope to gain more understanding and support of the struggles we face. (No sympathy needed). I hope to see that sufferers open up more in general, as it is so beneficial and Muddy Care helps us to do just that and make our futures brighter. I was surprised to find that people with all different chronic illnesses and conditions have so many of the same struggles and it has been so beneficial to share these with one another.

It is absolutely vital, that Muddy Care gets the funding it requires, to be able to continue to help so many other people long into the future!”

Claire T (Muddy Participant)