Up until around 10 years ago my mum was, to all intents and purposes, a perfectly healthy woman. She's always been very active, even to the point of occasionally joining in with my saturday morning jazz classes when she was in her 40's. We were running a busy cafe together and suddenly one day she started feeling ill and rushed to hospital. She was diagnosed, after some time, with left ventricular non-compaction, a rare congenital deformity of the heart which had never been picked up till then. Initially she was told to stop work, stop everything, to avoid aggravating the condition, so we closed the cafe down while they tried to figure out what to do. Since then, there have been many different theories, several different cardiologists and a few different diagnoses but needless to say, things got much worse and she started suffering atrial flutter and ectopic beats, extreme fast heart rate for prolonged periods of time which caused bouts of fainting, meaning she couldn't be left alone for much of the time and an obvious deterioration in stamina and strength due to inability to work or exercise.

After many hospital visits, both to accident and emergency and as an in-patient, several angiograms and two ablations we 'might' be on the right track, but it looks like she may now need a pacemaker, so the story isn't finished yet. As you can imagine the last couple of years have been extremely stressful for all the family, the 'not knowing what the problem is' has possibly been the worst part.

One of the reasons I've decided to sign up to this 10k run, is to raise money for the British Heart Foundation to help fund their research in the hopes that, in the future, other people won't have to go through the kind of drawn out stress and worry we have had to in order to get a diagnosis and treatment. At the end of the day, our hearts are kinda vital to our everyday lives and without charities like this one and their pioneering research and support to patients and their families, there would be a lot more people suffering and dying prematurely from heart disease. The other reason, I'll talk about below...

About me: 

I started dance classes at age of 2 and a half and by the time I was 18 I was working 40 or so hours a week in retail and trying to fit my dance training around it. Sometime around then I got ill, initially with an 'un-named glandular fever type illness' then whilst recovering from that I got chicken pox and shingles. Then flu. Then flu again and again and so on...After a few weeks off work to get over the chicken pox, I went back to work and dance training and tried to work through the rest. Long story short, I ended up as good as bed ridden for a couple of years before anyone figured out I was suffering from ME/CFS (chronic fatigue syndrome) and fibromyalgia due to overtraining and not allowing my body appropriate recovery time. After a period of retraining, with advice from the British Olympic Medical Institute, I eventually managed to get back to part time work although this took another couple of years. 12 years after I first got ill, I'm still suffering but have learnt to manage my health, although I still push myself too far sometimes (regularly...) and if I'm not careful can relapse. My flare ups/relapses are usually short lived these days, as long as I listen to my body and take time off when I need to. Although that doesn't happen very often...

I got back to dancing about 4 years ago after joining Ballet Bristol, a not for profit, community based company which provides performance opportunities for people of all abilities and brings ballet performances to community & charity events and to those people who are unable to get to the theatre i.e. in hospices, care homes etc. 

I've always enjoyed all sports and running is no exception, this 10k is going to be a major challenge for me, due to my health, but I've never been one to shy away from a challenge! 

Please, please give all you can and don't forget the giftaid! Every donation will help cheer me towards the finish line! Trust me, I'm gonna need all the support I can get...

Thanks for taking the time to read our story.

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