09 November 2015
After many years with Polycythaemia Vera, I gradually became very ill just before Christmas 2010 and was referred to Guy’s Hospital in London for more detailed tests and monitoring after which I was given a new drug. Fortunately this has made an enormous difference to my quality of life. I am enormously grateful for the care I received from my lovely consultant and her team at Guy’s. However, one drawback of my recovery is that I’ve gone from being skinny to excessively heavy! Going up two dress sizes was all very well but three – no way!
I knew I had to do something about my weight and cholesterol levels so have had to adopt new eating habits. Goodbye to diet cokes, cakes, and chocolates and even cutting back on the wine. Hello to the gym and now, it seems, to running! I spotted an appeal on the MPN Voice website fundraising events page asking for runners to raise money and inspired by a mixture of seeing work colleagues trot off for their lunch time runs and motivated to give something back, decided to give it a go and registered for the London BUPA 10K Run.
I am not an experienced runner and have never done an event before so this was a big challenge.
As part of the MPN Voice running team Barbara efforts have helped to raise over £12,000
