My Story

I'm running the London Marathon!😮🎉

This will come as a shock to a lot of you, as someone that has always been very anti-running. But this challenge is so much more than a run for me. 

This is unusually vulnerable for me, so please take a minute to read and listen to my story that I normally try to keep so quiet. 

When I was 12 years old, I was in a maths class and half of my body became paralysed and unable to move. I was hit with a horrific pain, my vision went blurry, and I could barely stand from the dizziness. I was sure I was having a stroke, and yet it turned out to be a migraine. This wasn't a little headache, this was the first day of a life changing chronic illness. Unlike most people, I couldn't just sleep it off in a dark room and take some painkillers. I waited for it to pass. Days, months, and here we are; 12 years later and I am still in that migraine attack. 

I have now lived more of my life with a migraine than not. With crippling pain for every second of every day since. Attacks have landed me in hospitals, left me bed bound for months, being wheelchaired out of school and work and planes. After dozens of medications, injections, inpatient stays at Great Ormond street and all manner of treatments, I am finally coping. This is not to say I do not live every second in pain. It's to say I have the strength to live more or less a 'normal' life despite it. 

For the first time in my life I am doing more than just surviving. I am enjoying life, managing to do things to bring me joy that most people take for granted, and most recently this has been running. Something I NEVER thought I would be capable of.

For all of this, I am taking on the biggest challenge of my life, supported every painful step of the 42km by my dad Alex Campbell. To finally prove to myself, and to everyone that has experienced the horror of a true migraine, that pain doesn't define us. And that the strength to fight it every day is so much stronger. 

I am running for The Migraine Trust to show others that life beyond migraines is possible, and to raise as much as I can to support the mission for a pain free future, for me and everyone who suffers. Please help to support #TeamMigraine with any donations, shares, or cheers and jelly babies on the course!

Thankyou all 🫶🏼💖