Today marks 7 years since I was down in London at the launch event of Healthcare Heroes- a collection of people who have made a positive impact through their work. I was invited and my story told because of the work I had been doing as a patient advocate for the severe asthma community. This to date is still one of my proudest moments, it also marked a time when I knew sharing my story was having an impacted, it was helping people no matter how hard it was for me to relive some of the scariest moments I have had. I have not written a blog post since last year as I have been doing a lot of sou ..read more

I have never been very good at resting or recognising when I need to rest. This has been really prominent in my sporting life and I think it comes with having chronic life threatening illnesses because you don’t know when your last time being involved in something will be. I used to go to every game, every run or every training session as if it was my last as I was terrified that it would be my last but that I would also leave that sport on a high knowing I had done my best and left it all out there. At training on Wednesday I knocked my head, neck and shoulder which prompted me to take a few ..read more

Throughout all of my sporting life severe asthma has played a huge part but it had not stopped me participating until I suffered from complications due to having a severe asthma attack and landing on life support. Throughout all my sporting life however I have always had people question how I can take part in high level sport because I have severe asthma and end up in hospital so often and in ITU etc. I even get asked this by other people who have severe asthma which just highlights how complex severe asthma is and how many different ways it manifests in people. What many people don’t know is ..read more

“When going out for a walk can be a bit of a gamble” I was asked a while back to write an opinion piece for the climate issue of the British Medical Journal. I decided to focus on my experience of living with severe asthma and the impact that air pollution can have on it. Air pollution is a key topic just now among various lung charities not just in the UK but across the world. It is a concern because air pollution not only impacts those living with lung disease but it is also causing lung disease in those who did not previously have one which long term will cause a huge burden to the economy ..read more

Walking into my first practice I had no idea what to expect. My only experience of wheelchair rugby league before that practice in March was watching the Wheelchair Rugby League World Cup during summer 2022- and that was by chance as one of my old lacrosse teammates was a referee at the World Cup. That first practice had a profound effect on me in so many ways. The first was that I felt exhausted (and in pain) but a good exhausted, I was no fit, I had done no fitness based activity in many years so no wonder (the pain wasn’t quite so good as I did have a large whole in my abdomen so what did I ..read more

It is no secret that the past 22 months have been really hard but I never realised how hard it would be once I had had surgery. Healing is going really well. I cannot believe the job the plastic surgeons have done. They did need to take my umbilical and I do have a nice 21cm scar but it has closed and I no longer need daily dressings, or packing etc. I don’t need to think about the clothes I am wearing, all that is in the past. The psychological impact I did not expect. You may think a huge scar like I now have may effect you psychologically but it really hasn’t- I am not really someone who w ..read more

Anyone who knows me knows my view on smoking and the impact that second hand smoke has had on my lungs both out in the community and in hospital. I have written countless blog posts on the topic as well. I thought September 5th 2022 was going to be a new dawn, that date marked a change in the law and it was now illegal to smoke within 15m of any hospital building and there was now an enforceable fine if people were caught smoking where they should not. In Intensive Care due to second hand smoke at the hospital entrance A freedom of information request was made to find out how many fines had be ..read more

It’s been a while but I have needed some time to just process all that has been going on recently as it has been a lot. My brain and body for the last 22 months have mainly been preoccupied with the issue I have had with my abdomen. On the 2nd August I finally had the operation which brought this whole saga to an end. I cannot thank the plastic surgery team who looked after me, from the consultant surgeon who saw me in outpatients, the nurse who looked after me each week at the plastic dressing clinic and then the team who did the final surgery. Due to the complex nature of what has gone on i ..read more

Pride month has come and gone now and I really didnt get involved in anything this year. Maybe next year. I didnt realise that the month of July focuses on Disability Pride, raising the awareness around various types of disability which can be seen in the flag. The disability pride flag like with many other flags has meaning behind each part of it and why images are as they are and the colours used etc. To read more about the flag you can hear . Disability is a term I have often hated however more recently as I have been able to accept how unwell I have been and how much my conditions impact ..read more

This is not a decision I came to easily and many many tears were shed as I mulled over what the best decision was. ICUsteps is a fantastic charity and one I found so rewarding to be involved in from being an attendee at a peer support group, helping set up a national set up in Scotland, bringing ICUsteps Edinburgh online as a virtual group during the pandemic and then as a trustee with ICUsteps. I will get back involved in the future but at the moment I cannot commit to help them when I need to help myself first. ICUsteps is a charity that was set up by an ICU (Intensive care unit) nurse and o ..read more