On Friday 28th June 2013 I will be attempting the National Three Peaks Challenge. The aim is to climb the 3 highest peaks in Scotland, England and Wales (Ben Nevis, Scafell Pike and Snowdon) within 24 hours with some of my colleagues at Thorn Baker Recruitment. I’m not entirely sure how I’ve ended up committing to this as anyone who knows me well will know that I am not the most outdoors-y of people and PE was by no means my best subject at school. In fact, my PE teacher regularly shouted “Lauren Sexton don’t be so bone idle” across the school fields when I was hiding behind the trees on a miserable day during cross country! However, I do quite like a challenge which this will certainly be. It’s also a great opportunity to try and raise some money for charity.

I decided early on that I wanted to do the challenge in aid of a charity that funds medical research. I think we are very lucky to live in an age where there is so much medical knowledge and understanding and whilst medical research is such a vast topic, it is undoubtedly something that has effected and benefitted every single one of us. There are, of course, hundreds of fantastic charities to choose from but I have chosen one that is of particular significance for me and my family – Heart Research UK.

In 1997 my Dad suffered an aortic dissection which, at the time, was misdiagnosed as a heart attack. By some miracle he survived this without surgery and the dissection was diagnosed some months later. He has been monitored ever since and in 2011 he underwent preventative 8 hour surgery to avoid future complications and, as a result, is still going strong today. In 2005, my Dad’s brother also suffered an aortic dissection. This was diagnosed and treated straight away with surgery and he too is still going strong. Aortic dissection occurs in only 2 out of every 10,000 people and it is very rare to have 2 cases in the same family. However, the extensive knowledge and understanding about the heart and circulatory system that we are lucky enough to have today has meant that hundreds of thousands of lives have been saved, and without such knowledge the Sextons would almost certainly be missing 2 people. There is no doubt that the skill and expertise of the surgeons and specialists who have treated my Dad and Uncle has saved their lives. For this reason I would like to do the Three Peaks Challenge to raise money for Heart Research UK to continue to improve understanding of the heart and circulatory system, to develop and perfect successful treatments, to train heart specialists and to continue to save lives. Amongst the many research projects that Heart Research UK are currently funding are the management of aortic dissection in pregnancy and an investigation into the genes involved in abdominal aortic aneurysm, both of which are of particular significance to my family.

 

To find out more about Heart Research UK's brilliant work please see their website http://www.heartresearch.org.uk/.

 

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