Archives: preparation

As the old proverb tells us:

Every great journey begins with a single step…

Today, my great journey to summit the 3 highest peaks in the UK within 24 hours began with the single, simple step of inducting myself at the gym.

I’ve been lucky enough to be sponsored by Topnotch Healthclubs with a gym membership and, if you’ll pardon the pun, top-notch training advice and personalised programmes to get me ship-shape and walking-fashioned in time for the challenge in June.

This blog, in what must been its umpteenth iteration1, will become home to OLI’S 3 PEAKS – the online diary of my build-up, training, highs and lows of my bid to raise awareness of organ donation by attempting a frankly very silly challenge for someone with a) a total lack of any kind of physical fitness and b) a very low tolerance for pain or discomfort.

Here, as they say, goes nothing….

1. having followed pre- and post-transplant journey and a short “trial” stint at university [↩]

Last night I was invited to K’s uncle’s Rotary Club meeting to give an after dinner speech about Cystic Fibrosis and transplant/organ donation1.

I have to confess I’ve been so swept up in work the last couple of weeks I hadn’t actually taken any time to prepare what I was going to say. It’s not difficult to tell my story off-the-cuff, but I usually like to have a rough game plan.

What I love about being unprepared, though, is what crops up from the proverbial blue when I’m winging it.

Last night I found myself saying this:

We all learn very early on that life’s not fair.

It’s not fair that anyone should have to go through what I’ve been through; it’s not fair for a 28-year-old to have been to as many friends’ funerals as I have; it’s not fair that a friend of mine has waited 2 years longer than I did for a transplant that still hasn’t come and is on the verge of giving up altogether.

By signing the Organ Donor Register you may not feel like you’ve done very much, but you will have taken a very, very small but very, very important step towards making life that little bit fairer for the people who are waiting [for transplants] and the families who love them, support them and don’t want to lose them when there’s a simple solution.

There’s an old army adage known as the 6 P’s that tells us “Proper Preparation Prevents P*** Poor Performance”. Yet sometimes – just sometimes – lack of preparation can lead to inspiration, to creativity and to an outcome you’d not considered.

I spoke at the Rotary Club of Harrow because I wanted to help spread the word about how life-transforming organ donation and transplantation can be. I walked away with several pledges to sign up and nearly £300 in donations for the Cystic Fibrosis Trust. Sometimes lack of preparation pays off.

(Now, if you haven’t already, go here and sign the Organ Donor Register!)

1. most of you will be familiar with my own transplant story from my SmileThroughIt journal [↩]