My Story

Here’s my story…

As a child my second home was a hospital. I spent many days and nights in severe physical pain; the only way to treat this was to be injected with strong analgesics and fluids mixed with antibiotics intravenously. I became an expert on my veins, which ones would work and which would not, I learnt to manage the beeping pumps that would push these pain killers through my veins and I spent hours upon hours looking for bubbles in the IV tubes and making sure I could get rid of these. I was not able to do all the normal physical activities the other children could do at school and P.E was always a dreaded time for me. I could not run as far as the other kids, and I soon learnt if I pushed myself too hard, instead of being accepted into the groups of children, I ended up in an ambulance needing oxygen. What caused such a difficult childhood, a very real and very debilitating inherited genetic condition called Sickle Cell Anaemia and Beta Thalassaemia.

I had many lows in my life while growing up, including way too many deaths in our family. It was a lot for one kid to have to deal with, but I developed resilience. I do not remember how, or when I decided to fight for my life, but I did, and once I was given a new drug, new at the time, I was off to college. I started to turn my life around. My times in hospital became fewer and fewer and my confidence in my ability to have a life increased. I realised I could achieve more than I knew possible. 

We made a baby! 

Shock, fear, delight so many emotions to learn about together. However, what many can take for granted in a simple nine months of pregnancy was not our story. I had to stop the medications that had been keeping me well enough to make dreams and achieve them. It was a downward spiral. It’s not possible to write about the in’s and out’s of how much my health deteriorated from that point, but what I can say is that growing a human inside me took its toll but gave me my next passion in life, to Live. Hard times continued and each time I could get up and live I did the very best I could within my constraints. 

We bought our first home, had our first child, and got married. We both had to work full time to survive financially. That was hard in itself. Our then toddler had to go to nursery and be looked after by strangers, we were lucky these strangers became friends and fulfilled their caregiver roles excellently. Our child was happy and thriving, did that make it any easier to drop her off at 8:30 am every morning? – absolutely not! As time passed, cracks in my life got bigger, trying to have our second child became a big wakeup call in the life cycle.

My exhaustion, paired with health issues and trying to act like a full-time career woman had an enormous impact on my health, my body said nope! I lost the pregnancy and had to work hard to regain a good level of health and fitness. I started to question how this portrayal of womanhood, women who have full on careers, happy children and clean households, do it??? Well like most things in the mainstream media – they don’t… 

A fresh direction

After losing my IT job through redundancy, I decided to take some time to focus on my home life and children. I read more, learnt more, gave more time and energy to raising my children and trying to figure out what was to come next. I tried out some job ideas that were just jobs, nothing to make my heart sing or my energy boom. Then some special people fed me some seeds, the seeds of change. One thing led to another and one day I came across Health Coaching, so very new in our world at the time. I pondered on it for a while. 

One day an email came to be from the CNM College about a new course to certify as a Health Coach. I took this as a sign to move in another direction. It was time to say goodbye to my IT career and start something new, the love and passion for living well for myself, for my family and for my children’s futures – this was the right choice to make. 

The children are our future

I chose to specialise in Family Health Coaching. Helping parents and their families live their best possible life, empowering them build long term healthy habits they can pass down to their children and grandchildren.

Working with one parent of the family, with a desire to lose weight for example, and getting the immediate family members on board for the journey means they feel supported and encouraged by their loved ones, leading to long term sustainable success. Having someone to keep you on track when times are tough and help support you to reach your goals.

My mission is to educate and guide our younger generation. There are so many aspects that children are not taught about how our bodies work and what they need to thrive. I believe they are the key to a better future on our Earth and given the struggles our planet is currently having , they may be the only chance for changes that will make our planet better.

My goal is to guide these impressionable younglings to want nothing less than healthier lives for themselves and their families. I want to show them that health is not just about how tall they are or how small their trousers fit. I want them to see the whole picture. I want them to hear their bodies when it asks for more sleep, see their skin when it needs to be treated with gentle care, and support and focus their mind on the beauty of the horizon, not just the digital world constantly in front of their every step.