Transplant Ambassador Project

About a year and half ago I spotted a blog post on one of the organ donation websites that I regularly follow which featured a call out for people who had been effected by organ donation to get involved in a relay race around the world on a Clipper 68ft racing yacht. My first response was to email the organiser and transplant surgeon Professor Stephen Wigmore and say I'd do it. I have a habit of getting involved in anything and everything (this frequently gets me into trouble...) and it didn't actually dawn on me till pretty recently what a hell of a challenge I was committing too.

Fast forward 18 months, a lot of emails between Steve & I, a couple of meetings and here I am having just returned from my first weeks training for the Clipper Race which starts in a few months. I'm exhausted both mentally and physically after a week of serious training and living on the yacht itself but I'm also extremely grateful and excited to be involved.

10 of us will be taking part in the race, each person has been directly effected by transplant and the aim is to raise awareness for organ donation around the world and show what an amazing difference to one's life a transplant can make.

I will be using this blog to document my Clipper journey...for the past year I have been posting elsewhere as quite simply my life post transplant has been going so well that I haven't felt the need to write on here.

I set off for my level 2 of training next week and I can't wait. It's an amazing feeling to be able to take part in something so huge as the Clipper Round the World race, especially as only a couple of years ago there's no way I'd be able to do this...spending 3 nights a week in hospital on dialysis, battling renal bone disease, anemia and a load of other joyous presents which come alongside kidney failure...I can't even begin to to explain the difference in me and my body. Anyway, thanks for reading and here are some photos from last week...