In 2019, the summer of my second year at university, I came home to start my internship which I had worked hard for and was beyond excited to start: however something welt different. In what seemed like a quick turn of events, within the month, I was diagnosed with a brain tumour. As a 20 year old, this was not exactly the most exciting news to hear between Love Island, the world cup and starting a working adult life. On top of that, finding a support group who had gone through something similar at the same age, proved to be more tough than initially anticipated. Between 2019 and last summer, I went through a series of brain and spinal chord surgeries to remove tumours that had popped up. Until a recent MRI I thought that the last surgery I had was completely successful, however recently we were told that there was a small, growing tumour. This is what motivates me and why I’m running for SameYou: at a time when I felt so alone, the ability to find and give back to a community going through shared ups and lows would be an honour. I would like to do this, to support individuals who feel alone in their recovery from a brain trauma, to my family and friends to show them how much their love and support over the past few years meant to me, and also to myself, to keep my spirit high and tell myself that if I can overcome 22km, I can surely overcome this tumour and diagnosis.

SameYou's purpose is for brain injury survivors to feel they haven't lost the person they were before.It's estimated that nearly 1 in 3 people will have an Acquired Brain Injury (ABI) at some point in their life. This is an underestimate of the scale of the problem due to the lack of focus on brain injury. SameYou is working to develop better recovery treatments for survivors of brain injury and stroke.