Why I donated to Crohn's & Colitis UK
Tricia Birmingham is a director at Fred Olsen Travel and spent the month of September running 60 miles to raise funds and awareness for Crohn’s & Colitis UK. Here, she shares why
Helping Rhinos
This is a feature from Issue 19 of Charitable Traveller. Click to read more from this issue.
When I signed up to run 60 miles in the month of September to raise money for Crohn’s & Colitis UK it didn’t sound too bad – I could run those miles at any point during that time. But then when I broke it down and realised that I had to run two miles every day for 30 days, it became more of a challenge!
I wanted to do something to help Crohn’s & Colitis UK as the charity is very dear to me personally. I’ve got two sons and in 2021 my oldest started at Naval College to follow his dream of becoming a ship’s captain. But it wasn’t long after his 18th birthday when he was away at sea and he got really poorly.
To begin with, we just thought there must be a virus going around. But as time went on his symptoms got worse and he was eventually hospitalised and diagnosed with a condition called ulcerative colitis, which is an inflammatory bowel disease (IBD). It was such a shock to us, particularly at such a young age, and there’s no cure for IBD – it simply has to be managed and supported and it becomes a way of life.
It was an enormous burden for him to take on, particularly just as he was starting out on his career – there was a lot of uncertainty around if he’d be able to continue at naval college. Two years on from the diagnosis, it’s been a relief that he was able to continue at college and has just spent a year at sea. His medical licence was restricted so he could only be in UK waters, but his company have supported him throughout and found a ship just off the coast of Grimsby for him to complete his apprenticeship. It was a bit different to the Caribbean seas he’d been expecting!
It was around the time of his diagnosis that I came across Crohn’s & Colitis UK, and started to investigate how they could help my son not just learn to physically manage the condition but also develop the mental health to have that resilience and determination to not let this diagnosis impact the rest of his life. At the time I was a director of a large travel company and I realised I had a bit of a platform to help raise awareness of hidden disabilities within the organisation.
I’m now director of tour operations at Fred Olsen Travel and am continuing to raise awareness there too – figures show one in five of the UK population are disabled and of these, 80 per cent are hidden disabilities, so that’s over 10 million people with a hidden disability. When it came to running in September, I started off really well and had every intention of doing two miles a day. That quickly went out the window as I was travelling a lot for work during the month, so I ended up running not just at home in Liverpool but in Ipswich and Felixstowe too, then also overseas on board a number of cruise ships! I’d be lapping the deck, determined to get my miles in, but it was confusing at times as Strava would mistake the ship’s movement for me, and tell me I’d run 10 miles in 30 minutes.
I don’t know what’s next for me in terms of challenges, but I do know I want to keep raising awareness of hidden disabilities. In my new role at Fred Olsen Travel, I hope I can inspire other people to feel empowered to do whatever they put their mind to, too.
Here to support
Crohn’s & Colitis UK works towards improving lives today and a world free from Crohn’s and Colitis tomorrow.
This is a feature from Issue 19 of Charitable Traveller. Click to read more from this issue.
by net effect