Timeline

I feel anyone who is reading about me should probably have a sense of the order of things so here's a bit of a whistle stop tour.

1977 - Born. The 4th of 5 children. 3 sisters and a brother to share a life with.

1989 - Start secondary school. Realise I have a voice and what I can use it for.

1995 - Leave secondary school. Work with my dad and uncles over the summer before starting at university.

1999 - Graduate from Uni with an honours degree in Chemistry with Med Chem. Decide to move to Cardiff for postgrad study.

2000 - Diagnosed with chronic myloid leukaemia. Have to abandon PhD and move home to start treatment for it. This will be a bone marrow transplant - bone marrow donated by my eldest sister who is found to be a perfect match.

2001 - have BMT. Chemo and radiotherapy regimes prepare me for it by killing my own bone marrow and then get given my sisters. Later in the year develop chronic graft versus host disease (GvHD). This is where my new immune system fails to recognise my own organs as being 'self' and starts to reject them. Many different treatments follow and occupy most of the next year until it is finally under control.

2002 - Resume postgraduate studies, this time in Aberdeen, under the guidance of a colleague from my time in Cardiff. Suffer occasionally from bouts of pneumonia and other instances of GvHD notably incredibly dry eyes and porous, tightening skin. This leads to the need for circumcision.

2004 - A series of investigations into breathing difficulties caused by recurrent chest infections reveals scarring of the lungs, mostly caused by the radiotherapy prior to BMT. Tests show weakened respiratory output but life is perfectly manageable.

2006 - Take up a post-doctoral placement in Belfast where health is maintained at the same level as the previous few years apart from being hospitalised due to a respiratory consultant who was surprised I could function as well with such a low measurement of oxygen level in the blood.

2007 - My father dies of cancer. A career change is pretty much foisted upon me and I decide to do what I have really always wanted to do and become a teacher. Before doing so I take a position as a school lab tech to get more of a feel for a school environment before applying for the PGCE. Health is still stable.

2008 - Move to Liverpool and do the PGCE. Love every second of it and thrive doing it.

2009 - In the last month of the course (May 2009) I have my first hospital stay in two years when I develop pneumonia again. This time though it's a fungal pneumonia and it takes forever to clear and causes a lot of damage in the meantime. This also causes GvHD to flare again and this time it attacks my lungs with a vengeance. I develop what they call bronchiolitis obliterans, where the body's attempts to heal itself actually block the airways. Start a massive dose of steroids to shock my immune system into stopping its attacks on me but the side effects of this almost kill me.

2010 - Now know that there are no other medical treatments available to pursue so my only option now is to have a lung transplant. To date I am below an acceptable weight for such a procedure to be able to take place because of being so ill previously but I am putting weight on and hopefully this will happen sooner rather than later.

There's the straightforward facts. Over time I'll expand on the story and say a lot more about what happened at all the steps along the way.