What I am doing

I have brain stormed and given a huge amount of thought to what I could do that would go a tiny way to not only raising money, but awareness and help those in a similar position to what I was in. So I have landed upon the idea of making a documentary about the wonderful work of Morriston Hospital Burns Unit, and incorporating my life story and a completely outrageous five day adrenaline challenge to raise money. This is a hugely personal adventure for myself and I am undertaking it with a massive amount of help from some of my closest friends, classmates, and family members. Through the retirement of Doctor Dickson, it has really hit home to the work he and his team did.. Its my turn to repay the Unit in any way I can for all the work they did with me and the work they continuously do for patients now.

A brief outline of my Story

My name is Joseph Nash and I am 24 years of age. I was scalded by a kettle at the age of 9 months old and have spent the reminder of my life growing up and living my life with the very real physical & mental scars from that one day. Through the wonderful work of Chepstow Burns Unit under the supervisor of Doctor Dickson, I manage to survive the incident. I was then transferred to Morriston Burns Unit along with the Burns Unit itself and spent a lot of my younger years backwards and forwards to the unit for treatment. The next step for me was going into nursery and meeting the class mates, I was in a pressure garment from the moment I woke up until the moment I was bathed to be put to bed were I had to put the pressure garment back on. I was protected in that sense from the children in nursery because they were unable to see the scald. It wasn't until I reached the age of the four that I was able to take the pressure garment off that the other classmates were introduced to my scars. I remember being spoken to my parents and having them explain to me that the other children might make comments, or ask me questions about my scald and that it was okay. They told me that I was not to worry and that I was no different from the other children.

I had the total support of my parents and the staff in my primary school, but there were certainly days where I struggled to understand what happened and why did it happen to me. These questions mainly came when there were comments past by classmates or visiting children to our school, at the time it made me angry and sometimes I snapped out. Now looking back of course I am aware children are curious, they don't know how to ask correctly or know the difference to what curiosity is to rudeness. The staff of course were aware of this and always made a really effort with myself to help understand and deal with it. I guess looking back now, other than the occasions to which children commented etc.. Primary school, especially towards the end of it was quite sheltered, was quite controlled, and with there being simply 20 or so pupils in the one year, it wasn't long before everyone in my year understood and accepted that I was still me.

I was still having appointments, as doctors were following the progress of the scald as I grew.. However, just like any scar as you grow the scars don't and over the years I have had to receive further skin graphs and treatment, etc... The next major stage of my younger years was moving from the sheltered life of my primary school and moving to my comprehensive. This for me was a massive challenge, moving from 20 or so pupils to around 160 pupils. This was an extremely donting challenge, I was nervous at how other pupils would react to seeing my scars especially now that short sleeve shirts were involved. I had to re-live the comments, the name calling, the questions and back came the anger. I did my very best in class and I had my friends from primary and many family members for support. I would definitely say the years of comprehensive were the most challenging for me to deal with mentally. I have to be open and honest, there were certainly times I thought I needed a way out, I was tired of being 'different' with no one to truly understand how I felt, who truly knew what had happened and how much of a struggle looking at myself in the mirror was. I set myself targets everyday, focus's and spent a lot of time driving my efforts into sports as a way of revealing my frustrations of everyday life and people. A technique I still use today.

I think through my latter years between the ages of 16- now, I have began to understand truly what happened wasn't anyone's fault nor my own. I realised that it was a freak accident, from having an understanding of what happened in the latter years I believe it has really helped my embrace it and move forward with my life. I have done things in the last 8 years that before I had a true understanding I would never have dreamed of doing. A huge part of this is the support I have had from my primary school, comprehensive, friends and family and without all those factors I don't think I would have been able to handle the emotion of the event. I can not begin to thank the hospital for the work they have done on myself, to keep me alive at the beginning to the latest operation I have had. The efforts of Doctor Dickson and his team over the years have been second to none and I firmly believe that if I could give them the highest award possible I really would. I wouldn't be here today without them and watching my own daughter grow up just like my parents were able to watch me develop into the person I am today.

My Plan

I had a huge amount of ideas when I first set out on this project, through much communication with an old friend who is producing this with me I settled on the follow.

I have decided that my, 'Five Day Adrenaline Challenge' will take around April-June next year and the challenges that I have decided on are as follows;

1. Sky Diving in the Gower.

2. Cliff Diving and Coastalneering in Havefordwest.

3. 500ft above ground Zipline in Snowdonia.

4. 5KM of Go-Below's Underground adrenaline challenge.

5. 450ft Bungee Jump in Chepstow.
   
   

This is my foundation for the fund raising, upon really thinking about what I wanted from the project and what it meant to me, I decided that I wanted to raise awareness for the unit and scalds/ burns themselves. To do this I decided that I would document the whole project from start to finish and make it viral when its completely edited. I have the help as I stated previously of a friend who has known me for many years and has his own business in producing. I have further assistance from friends on various other parts of the documentary process, and the support they have given me through this process has been outstanding.

I have set up with my Primary school and comprehensive school to go ahead and film on the premises to which I have plans for in the documentary. I have also asked my comprehensive school to set up a competition between all the years in the school to make t-shirts of which I would wear on the events. The school have readily agreed and the support for the project they have shown has been excellent.

The documentary is something as I said that can go viral and hopefully reach people throughout South Wales and hopefully further.. In my head I am hoping that it address's the difficulties I found growing up with scalds and giving those in the situation that I was the realisation far earlier than I had it, that they are the same as anyone else and that they can be successful in anything they want to do. They can achieve greatness and that beauty isn't just physical! If the next year of effort only helps one person then I will deem this to be a success.

So please be as generous as possible for a truly amazing cause!  Thank You