UPDATE 2

For anyone who would like to see some photos from the day, the link is:

http://www.marathonfoto.com/order_my_photos.cfm?RaceOID=19802010S1&LastName=DANSON&BibNumber=30561&Language=en&Mailing=24322&BFI=6paxhchk21&Frames=true&Flash=true&FlashVersion=8&Height=800&Width=1280&Index2Home=true

UPDATE

 

Hi Everyone, a massive thank you to everyone for helping me to raise a massive £2500!! Wow, you have all been so unbelievably amazing and generous, thank you so much.

I had a lovely day on Sunday and completed the course in 3hrs 35mins. I thoroughly enjoyed running and the atmosphere was incredible. My family and a few friends all came to support which was lovely. I was also very lucky to recieve lots of support in the form of messages from everyone so thank you very much!

We went to a reception held in a local pub by the organises from beat where we were able to meet them and the other beat runners. They were lovely and so unbelievably grateful for the money that you have helped me to raise for them. On leaving I was given a huge hug as they were so pleased with the amount raised. In total there were 21 runners onthe day and between us we managed to raise a whopping £40,000+ so thank you again! I will post the photos or the link if you wouldlike to see them when I recieve the email from the marathon people.

I was also on camera for about 5seconds on the highlights show, the link for anyone who wants to see is

http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b00s6lr3/London_Marathon_2010_Highlights/

Youjust need to go to about 38mins 25scs along and I am in the top right corner running to the bottom right.

Thnx again, lots of love

claire xxx

 

Hi everyone, thank you very much for taking the time to visit my page.

My aim with doing this is to raise awrareness and understanding of eating disorders. First of all, for those of you who do not already know I first suffered from anorexia nervosa when I was 13 and had two admissions to a specialist eating disorder unit called the Huntercombe Maidenhead hospital between the ages of 13-15. Each time I was an inpatient there for 6 months. After my second admission I got much better and was able to stay healthy for a long while. Unfortunately when Iwent to university in Sept 08 I started to lose weight and had to drop out of university at Christmas. Back at home I managed to maintain my weight for a while as I trained to run the marathon, however I was still significantly underweight and ran the marathon at a dangerously low BMI of 15.5. Folllowing the marathon I went into a rapid decline and was admitted to a new inpatient eating disorders unit on 2nd July 2009. I am now going to tell you a bit more about my battle. Please take the time to read it as it has been very difficult for me to write this and share it with you, but I have made the decision to do so as this is not an illness to be ashamed or embarassed about. It is serious and I want to open more peoples eyes to it and change the views that some people may have of it being a 'selfish' or 'attention seeking' illness. I can assure you it is neither of these.

 

My story

 

As I said, my weight began to plummet after the marathon as I no longer had any reason to fight the anorexia taking over. So this is what it did and no matter how I tried, it would not let me eat. I felt so terrible every time I ate and was filled with a feeling of achievement and control everytime I didn't eat that I was soon living on very very little food at all and would fill myself up on back coffee and chew gum constantly to ward off hunger.

At the same time I continued to work long shifts, but in the end this became too much and I had to leave work early one day and went straight to the GP for an emergency appointment. He referred me directly to a specialist eating disorders team in Basingstoke. I was assessed there a couple of days later and it was decided that I would need an emergency admission to a specialist unit for inpatient care as soon as there was an available bed. I waited 9 days in which time things went from bad to worse. As I stopped eating I had to go to the general hospital to be monitored and all my strength was nearly gone. I got to the point where I had to drag myself out of bed and totter down the stairs where I would collapse on the sofa. Getting up to go to the toilet was so strenuous I thouht I would collapse and hauling myself back upstairs at the end of the day was nearly impossible and I often thought I would fall back down.

I went for an assessment at Cotswold House in Marlborough on Thursday 2nd July, where I was immediately admitted at a BMI of 10.68 (a healthy BMI is considered toi be 19-25). To start I managed to comply with the very little food that thery were asking me to eat, but by the next day I was already not eating again, and over the wekend I ate nothing even though I was told that if I didn't start eating I would have to be transferred to the Great Western Hospital (GWH) to be tube fed. On the Monday morning I was seen by the doctor and managed to eat some branflakes, but I was so week that I could not even feed myself and had to be spoon fed by one of the support workers. The doctor said that I was now so medically unstable that they could no longer look after me at Cotswold House and I was taken in an ambulance to GWH.

At the GWH I spent the first 4 days on the elderly persons ward. In this time I lost all my strength and all my muscles were wasted o such an extent that I became unable to move at all. I could not move my legs, I could not sit up, I could not lift my own head, I just about had use of my arms but that was it. To move I had to be physically moved by the nurses and I was basically dying with nothing anyone could do. I was scared and I tried to eat, but then my body could no longer take food and I began to be violently sick and would even throw up water. When there was nothing left for me to throw up I spent all night retching and was in the most pain I had ever been in in my life. The on call doctor was called in and I was given all the anti sickness medicaiton and all the pain relief they could give me but everyone was very worried and my Mum stayed with me all night. Somehow by the morning it had calmed down and I was not sick anymore. I was transferred to the nasogastric ward where with the help of a lot of anti sickness medication I was able to start eating again. However, I was still not able to move, which frightened me a lot. After a further 5 days there I started to regain some strength and could stand by the 5th day. By this time I was medically stable and returned to Cotswold House.

However, that evening i fell over in my bathroom as I was still so week and had to go back to the GWH for an x-ray. All was fine and I returned to Cotswold House. But the nest day I suffered fom a TIA, which is a mini stroke. It was awful, I could not speak and no-one could understand what was going on. I forgot who members of my family were and I was terrified. I was taken back to the GWH, but after about an hour the TIA passed and I was ok again so I had an MRI scan and then went back to Cotswld House.

I spent the next 5 months in Cotswold House and although it was exceedingly difficult I got through and I worked hard to battle against my eating disorder to gain weight and to get better. At first it was very hard as I was so physically underweight that I was confined to a wheelchair and was not allowed outside. However as I gained weight  I was allowed to do more and eventually after three months I was allowed to go home overnight. I was discharged at the beginning of December so I was home for christmas which was lovely.

Now I am home and I am much much happier, but a lot of people incorrectly assume that I am home and therefore I am completely better. The thing about an eatng disorder is that it can come back to haunt you and even though a person can appear well on the outside it does not mean that they don't have the same inner battles when it comes to self esteem and eating. Having said this I am doing much much better and am happier than I have been in a long long time. I am also confident that I will never have to go back down the route of anorexia nervosa again.

I have so many exciting things happening in my life, none of which I would have been able to do when I was in the grips of anorexia, I am so pleased that I managed to pull myself through it and am better now. I have gained a lot of weight and am now able to maintain my weight whilst training hard for the London marathon, which I will be doing this year at a healthier weight. I am running for BEAT which is the national eating disorders charity- please take some time to look at the website! I have also included some pictures. The first are when I was at the GWH but not at my worst. These were taken after I was able to wash my hair and when I was starting to get better. The others are me now.... I think you will agree that these reflect the real me and will be how you think of me, a healthy and happy me :)

I would like to finish by thanking you for taking the time to read this and also to say thank you to all of you who have been so supportive to me throughout the time I have been ill. You have really pulled me through whenI have found it hard. Knowing that I have such great friends and family to support and help me is truly what has got me through so thank you.

Lastly, I wan to end by saying anorexia is not a choice, it is not an attention seeking device. I realise it is hard to understand but it is something that often takes over a person entirely. It is with them 24hrs a day, haunting them and telling them how awful and worthless they are. There is so much more to it than just not eating. As someone very close to me has said , it is not much use saying to an anorexic, 'why don't you just eat more?' if it were this easy then I would put the following to an overweight person, 'why don't you just eat less?'

My biggest fear of telling everyone and exposing this information is of the impact it may have. I ask you to remember that this does not change who I am, this illness does not define who I am, please don't forget that. If anyone has any questions or if anyone thinks they may have a friend with a problem please don't hesitate to contact me and  will help in any way that I can.

Thank you again, if you could donate any small amount then that would be great, but if not then more importantly please help me to raise awareness. Post my page to all your friends, even if they do not know me. I want more people to understand. If they do then sufferers like me do not need to hide it, it is not something to be ashamed or embarassed about. It is not a tabboo subject and it should be talked about to help people and to help understanding. So please, if you tell 10 people nd they tell 10 more then they tell 10 more etc. then we can rally make a difference.

THANK YOU FOR READING THIS, LOVE U ALL!!! XXXXXXXXXXXXXX

 

 

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