In 2018 a routine medical procedure my wife Hannah was undergoing went very badly wrong. The resulting nerve damage in her pelvis and spine left her disabled, in extreme chronic pain and having to reacclimatise to life without a functioning bladder.

Our lives changed immeasurably in the months and years after she became ill. She was no longer able to work, had to learn to walk with a stick and began having to take pretty tasty levels of opiates just to get out of bed in the morning. We also became frequent flyers in the Urology department at Guy’s. During the first few months we barely seemed to leave the hospital and it quickly became clear that this wasn’t something that could be cured, but instead would need to be managed for the rest of her life. Over the first couple of years of her illness her incredible surgical team in the Guy’s Urology Department and specialists in the Guy’s & St Thomas pain team attempted several interventions, aiming to make her life a little easier. They attached an electronic implant called an SNS device to her spine, which she is able to control via an app on a phone. It mitigates some of the pain and makes airport security even more fun! They experimented with various methods of catheterisation and ended up using Hannah as a guinea pig in a trial for the use of a device called a MIC-KEY button, which has proven to be by far the least invasive and annoying form of constant catheterisation for her. Despite this, she still needs to have her catheter changed under general anaesthetic every three months, so we get to experience the pure joy of surgery days more often than most!

More recently, we have been under the care of Guy’s & St Thomas’ Assisted Conception unit (it turns out that conceiving naturally when no one is quite sure what is going on between your stomach and pelvis can be a bit fraught 🤷‍♂️) Not being able to do something that feels like it should be a biological certainty is unspeakably hard. The specialists we have seen, and those excited to join us for what would undoubtedly be a whirlwind of a pregnancy if and when it does happen (to reiterate - no clue what’s going on in there!) have been fantastic though. They are just as caring and helpful as we have come to expect in our various dealings with these hospitals.

We couldn’t be more grateful to be under the care of Guy’s & St Thomas’. It doesn’t feel like we’ve had a huge amount of luck over the past few years, but having world class medical professionals and facilities on our doorstep has been invaluable and made a situation which at times can seem impossible a little more manageable. We have utilised their care much more than most over the past six years, and we will continue to do so for the rest of our lives. So when I decided to run the marathon it felt like a no brainer to use it as an excuse to give something back to the fantastic staff of these wonderful hospitals.

I have enviously watched friends run the London marathon many times over the years (it starts barely a mile from my front door and goes more or less past the end of the road we live on!) The tendinitis I developed in my ankle a decade ago has made it tricky to train for long distance running and I always assumed it was an unachievable dream. A visit to a new physio a couple of years ago changed everything though. A mixture of achingly slow increments of progression in my running load each week with various functional and weight training since then has left me in the best position I’ve ever been in to run those familiar streets and I couldn’t be more excited!

If you would like to find out more about mine and Hannah’s story, you can purchase the hardcover edition of my book here or the digital edition here. 50% of all proceeds from the sale of the book between now and April 2025 will be donated to Guy’s & St Thomas’ Charity. You can also watch this fantastic video made by Carlos Jimenez to publicise the book on its release in 2020.

Please do consider giving what you can to a charity that is so dear to mine and Hannah’s hearts. And come and cheer me on on April 27th too! Thank you so much for your support.