“Are you ok?” my husband, Matt, asked through the closed bathroom door.

Sadly, the answer was a “No”.

I was lying on the bathroom floor having passed out from being ill for the 12th time that year.

It was a long road that had led to that point…

I was born in North London in 1975 and, apart from a few years living in Bristol where I studied Applied Statistics at University, I lived there all my life, until Covid happened.  At that point I moved to Brighton and have now settled in Shoreham-by-Sea.

After graduating in 1996, my career in IT recruitment started with Computer Futures where I spent 8 years as a top biller (PC Support Perm was my market averaging 7 to 10 placements a month) before becoming the Recruitment Manager for a Microsoft Gold Partner called Conchango (which was then bought by EMC, now Dell) and then setting up my own recruitment / career coaching business called Intrinsic Recruitment.

I worked hard with passion, I exercised and socialised, and worked some more to build my business and be a success.

I met Matt in 2007, fell in love and we married in 2014.  But 3 months after our wedding I woke up having what I thought was a heart attack.  Following endless tests, it was discovered that I have a cyst on my heart.  Although normally these are nothing to worry about and I should be able to lead a perfectly normal, healthy life, I found this wasn’t the case.

The time following my initial diagnosis saw me bouncing from illness to illness.  I caught every bug going and, even though I ate well, exercised daily and slept well.  I couldn’t understand what was going on.

Time went by, I almost got used to being sick and tired but then suddenly there I was, out cold on the bathroom floor, with Matt realising that “in sickness and in health” really did mean just that…

That rock bottom moment made me realise I simply HAD to take time out of my career and busy schedule to find out what was wrong and to try and get my health back.  

I started working with a Health Coach and she gave me my “light bulb moment”.  I was working so hard building my career and helping others with their personal and work challenges, I had forgotten to take care of myself.

I committed the time and energy to look after myself with the #1 focus being on reducing stress, as this was what was ultimately making me ill.  Since then, I have not been sick, am now 2 stone lighter, have significantly increased energy levels and probably healthier than I have ever been.

I was so inspired by everything I learnt on my journey that I decided to train as a Health Coach. Now, I support others to transform their lifestyles so they can lead healthy, happy lives.