To compete in the World Transplant Games 2023

As some of you may know problems occurred during my birth leading to having a leaky heart valve. I was fortunate enough to be treated by the amazing medical experts at Great Ormond Street Hospital for Children who managed to help me reach the age of two-years-old before I needed any major heart surgery. The surgeons firstly repaired my damaged valve, however just three months after this surgery another heart valve needed replacing. Unfortunately, I did not recover well from this surgery and the original repaired valve began to fail, so it was decided the only option was a Heart Transplant.

This is pretty radical nowadays, let alone back in 1993 when paediatric heart transplants were in their infancy. I did not have to wait long to receive a donor heart, I can never thank my donor family enough for thinking of others in an unimaginably horrible time. Thanks to my donor, their family, my family and the incredible medical teams I recovered well and was able to begin school age of four-years-old and do everything any other child could.

My heart transplant means I have lived beyond the age of three-years-old, in fact an extra 29 years, reaching adulthood. And as I grew out of the child beds I moved across to start receiving my post-transplant adult care at the brilliant Royal Papworth Hospital. I have been lucky enough to be fit and well enough to compete in the British Transplant Games held annually in different cities around the UK, where you compete with other transplantees for your hospital team in friendly competition against other hospital teams. I have even won a few medals over the past 28 years since I first competed in 1994!

But I was beyond shocked to find out I had been selected for the World Transplant Games following competing in Leeds this Summer following my 3K Walking race performance. It is an incredible honour to be asked to represent Great Britain as a transplantee.

The World Transplant Games are due to take place in Australia in April 2023. I cannot wait to compete, especially because the Games fall over my 30th Heart Transplant Anniversary and what better way to spend it than demonstrating on an international scale how wonderful transplants are?! I have already begun training, so perhaps I will even be able to bring home a bit of bling!

But as you might've guessed by the location it will not be cheap to attend. The estimated cost of attending is £4,000 (flights, accommodation, food etc). The Games are run in partnership with Transplant Sport a charity who ploughs any money raised back into the games, therefore we need to raise the costs of attending ourselves. This is no mean feat considering as many of you know I am now a full-time student living on a student loan. I am hoping to secure some funding elsewhere, but I will still need to raise a significant amount of this total myself. Therefore I have begun fundraising by setting up this page in a bid to make this dream reality.

I know with the cost of living things are especially tight at present, but if you can afford to donate any donation will be gratefully received. Any excess proceeds will be donated to Transplant Sport.

A HUGE Thank You to Salisbury Racecourse & NFU Mutual Wessex & Worley Rotary Club for agreeing to sponsor me! This is a massive help in making this dream become reality.

For any enquiries please email: [email redacted]

I will keep you posted on my training progress!

Thank You, Lucy xxx