Thanks for taking the time to visit my JustGiving page for my running blade appeal.

I am a sports enthusiast. I love running, weight lifting, swimming, walking and soon (hopefully) cycling. My journey to becoming a sports enthusiast "officially" started in 2013 but for you to really understand why this enthusiasm developed, I will have to take you back to when I was 8 years old.

I was born with proximal femoral focal deficiency which means my right femur is shorter than my left. Having this condition means I wear a prosthetic leg and walk with a crutch. When I was 8 years old I was bullied by a friend who focused all of her taunts on my little leg. After that incident, I closed my heart and vowed I would never allow anyone to hurt me like that again. I threw away all my skirts and shorts and hid my prosthetic under trousers and jeans.

I was still struggling with accepting my leg as I got older. I thought if I couldn't have two normal legs at least I could be thin and developed an eating disorder to achieve what I perceived as “normal”. Eventually I got help from a Doctor and read lots of eating disorder recovery survivor stories which helped the recovery process a lot. However, when I recovered from the eating disorder I still didn't feel happy within myself. I felt empty inside and I did not understand why.

During a holiday with friends, a friend said to me that if I don’t feel happy with the way I look maybe I should consider getting my leg amputated. When I came home after the trip, I visited the Doctor and asked for my leg to be amputated. He asked me why I wanted to amputate but I couldn’t explain why. Then the Doctor told me something that I will never forget: if I only want to amputate my leg to look pleasing to others then he would highly recommend that I don’t get it amputated. It’s not what’s on the outside I need to change, it is what’s in my mind. That's when it hit me. It was the thoughts about my leg that needed to change not my leg itself.

After the visit, I googled "how to change your thoughts” and Life Coaching came up in the search results. I read a few articles and was convinced this was the path for me. I became a certified Life Coach in 2016. It completely changed my life. During the life coaching training I realised that when I closed my heart at 8 years old to pain, I also closed it to joy. I remembered how much joy I got from playing sports when I was younger. I stopped playing because I was scared of what people would say about my leg when wearing shorts and running with a limp. I was afraid of being hurt again.

Now you know why I became a sports enthusiast, I want to tell you my purpose for continuing on this path. I want to enter several running competitions: (a) 5km (b) 10km (c) 16km (d) 21km (e) 42km (yes a Marathon!). I hope that by sharing my running journey with others it will give them the courage to share themselves with the world and allow themselves to be seen for the beautiful unique human being they are.

In order to take part in the running competitions I need a running blade because it is not good for my body to run in my normal prosthetic and it is not made for running so would eventually break. The running blade prosthetic costs £10,000. If this story resonated with you and you feel compelled to do so, please donate any amount big or small because every little helps.