4.5 years ago I learnt I was disabled. An incredibly rare condition called Osteochondritis Dissecans stage 4 had caused the bone and cartilage on the outside of my knee joint (lateral femural chondile) to disintegrate requiring emergency surgery to stop further damage to my leg.

The condition itself has left me with a severe irregularity of the joint surface within the knee meaning that I'm in pain when I walk, exercise or sit in certain positions. Day to day I struggle with the simple tasks such as cleaning, cooking, food shopping and even getting to work. I rely heavily on my car which I had previously received DLA for but under the new PIP scheme am no longer eligible meaning that I had to use a large portion of savings to buy it out right. Having this surgery would drastically change my life meaning that I could live pain free and independent again.

At the same time as finding this out I had a non-unionised fracture in my opposite leg’s ankle requiring bone grafting and a series of operations to make it heal. Whilst the ankle bone has healed, I now have a soft tissue impingement within the joint meaning I am in near constant pain and have reduced mobility in this leg too.

I now have the opportunity to potentially repair the damage caused by the disease and ankle break through two different operations. The first requires a highly specialised stem cell grafting operation pioneered in the UK. The second is a more straight forward arthroscopy operation to remove damaged tissue and check for damage to the ligaments and small muscles in my ankle. These operations are not covered by the NHS and as such I’m fundraising money to cover them. Additionally I need to fundraise money to cover my rehabilitation process to put me in the best position to be able to walk normally again. This includes a year of physiotherapy and working with a specialised rehabilitation personal trainer to rebuild my muscles in the right way to prevent future damage.