Follow my progress : www.facebook.com/climbingeverestforgosh 

At 18 months old my daughter underwent open heart surgery. This was, without doubt, the most intense and agonising experience of my life. The care she received was amazing and so I have decided to do something to pay my respects to the truly courageous paediatric doctors, nurses and support teams who care for sick children every day, that is to climb to the summit of Mt Everest.

 

To enable me to achieve this, my employer (Royal Bank of Canada) has kindly allowed me to take a sabbatical to join a 5-person expedition team for two months (leaving on the 5th of April), my focus being to raise money for Great Ormond Street Hospital, a world-leading children's hospital and one of RBC's charity partners.

 

My previous experience in climbing mountains has taken me to Europe, South America, North America and Africa and includes summits of Mt McKinley and Kilimanjaro, the latter being when my mum was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer in 2002, a condition which later claimed her life.

 

At 5,895 and 6,168 metres respectively, Kilimanjaro and McKinley are mere mole-hills compared to the 8,848 vertical metre challenge I am facing in attempting to summit Mt Everest but every step will be helping towards the 220,000 sick children who are helped by Great Ormond Street Hospital every year.

 

All the money donated will go to the hospital - no money will be used to offset the expedition's costs.