Thanks for taking the time to visit my JustGiving page and supporting Boo2Everest in memory of my Mum (Norma Timms).

Boo2Everest is a project that is incredibly special and personally challenging cumulating in attempting to summit the highest mountain in the world - Mount Everest in 2020. 

I have little alpine experience with only Mount Kilimanjaro under my belt in 2017. Before attempting Everest I have 14 peaks across the world of various heights and technical ability to tick off first to make sure I'm 100% prepared!

My Mum's Story

You take the beating of your heart and the breath in your lungs for granted, that is, until there is a problem with them.

Papworth Hospital is certainly somewhere I never would have heard about without knowing the work that my mum did with them over the years. They are a specialist cardiothoracic hospital, and the work they do and the immense care they provide is just incredible.

When I was a young teenager I found my mum in the bathroom, blue in the face in the middle of the night. I was terrified. I rang the ambulance, I had just enough time to get changed, pack some things for her and they were there. The paramedics gave her oxygen and I could feel my own heart calming as the colour started returning to her face. We managed to get her out of the house - incredibly without waking anyone. At the hospital I waited with her all night as people came and went, she was so proud how I'd dealt with the situation - she told every nurse, doctor and patient. And in turn her constant bravery makes me proud to call her my mum!

From that day she was referred to Papworth Hospital, where after years of suffering she was diagnosed with Pulmonary Hypertension.

If you don't know what PH is, the way to describe it's effects is like living at high altitude permanently. With high blood pressure in the lungs, it makes the right hand side of the heart have to work really hard but despite it's attempts still very ineffectively - this causes it to become enlarged through overuse. It's a degenerative condition which means that sufferers can't process oxygen as efficiently as you or me. The basic tasks of walking around a supermarket suddenly become unmanageable as you have to rest to get your breath back at the end of every aisle.

Papworth Hospital help sufferers to cope with their conditions and as a relatively newly known condition, my mum also underwent many drug trials with them to improve the outlook for future sufferers. One of the treatments worked really well for her and enabled her to live an improved quality of life for the last 12 years - so what is it? Viagra!

I'm so thankful for Papworth giving us the last 15 years, without them I know we would have had our time cut much shorter. 

Norma's fight ended on 21st January 2018 when her body could no longer battle. She was cremated in an immensely beautiful ceremony on 21st February 2018.  

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Thank you for your donation and we look forward to updating you with the progress of our project Boo2Everest via our Facebook page - https://www.facebook.com/boo2everest