Swimming seems the most appropriate way for Alex to raise funds for COSMIC and CATS. So towards the end of the season she wasn’t sure she’d get back into, she has decided an endurance swim is the way to go. So on Saturday 2nd July 2022 she will be asking family, friends and teammates to join in to help complete 12 hours of swimming in an endless pool (like a treadmill but for swimmers!) to raise as much sponsorship as they can for the charities. Ideally we’d like donations to be roughly even between the two, but please donate to one or the other as you prefer.

In September 2021 Alex caught COVID19. Within a few days she went from an extremely fit competitive swimmer to being admitted to hospital requiring oxygen. Within 24 hours she was collected by the incredible team from CATS and transferred to PICU at St Mary’s. Over the next week or so the team at St Mary’s were amazing - doctors, nurses, physios and everyone on the unit supporting her through. Every handover included information on what was important to her - mainly swimming! She gradually resigned herself to the fact that the 21/22 season wasn’t going to go to plan.

With an awe-inspiring level of determination Alex was back to school and starting to think about swimming within a few weeks of discharge, eventually getting back to full training by the end of December 2021. By the end of January, 4 months after PICU, she was County champion in 1500m freestyle and a month or so later London Regional silver medalist over 800m and 1500m freestyle.

The two charities are part of the incredible work that both CATS and St Mary“s PICU do in supporting critically ill children and families when they need it most.