I am supporting Kidney Care UK's #BloodyAmazingKidneys campaign which launched in 2024. This is our first ever national awareness campaign and the response has been, quite frankly, bloody amazing!

The campaign is aimed at helping to increase people’s knowledge of the “Bloody Amazing” job our kidneys do filtering our blood and keeping our organs working properly. So far, 110,000 people have completed the Kidney Care UK online risk checker to see if they might be at increased risk of kidney disease, with more than half of them being at higher risk and so advised to follow up with their GP.

This is also the charity's 50th Anniversary year, so all the more inspiration for my my swims. I have set myself a target to complete 50 outdoor/wild swims in 2025, its my "Bloody Amazing Kidneys Challenge"!! I am hoping to raise £300 for the charity. Some will be cold!! I already have January 2025 winter swims – at a chilly 3 degrees – completed!

And when I'm on holiday in Anaxos, North Lesvos, I will miss the Great North Swim, so am making my own – the same distance – a 1 mile sea swim at the same time as the Great North. I am grateful to my Lesvos pals as some of them will be joining me to do my sea mile!

I'm hoping my fundraising helps support people with chronic kidney disease, and helps people to access our online risk checker. I wish I had known of the charity when my Mum and Dad had chronic kidney disease, they may have had earlier diagnosis, and we would certainly have benefitted from the support and information available.

Any donation you can give will be very much appreciated, and the money raised will help us to continue making a genuine difference to kidney patients. When you need dialysis in hospital you are on a machine to do the work of your kidneys, filtering your blood for 3 to 5 hours at a time, 3 or 4 times a week, then there is the travel time on top ……. It’s relentless, people feel the cold more, feel exhausted a lot of the time and are often unable to continue to work in the same way. If you need dialysis and don’t have it, your body just gives up. Our grants and emotional support help people with kidney disease cope, so I am honoured to help in this small way. Thank you for reading, and my heartfelt thanks for any donation you feel able to make.