Rachel is pictured above on the right
Rachael Stephens, has raised £1,225 for Immunodeficiency UK after being diagnosed with CVID in early 2023
Rachael, who is based in Cornwall, set her sights on climbing three Scottish mountains, including Ben Nevis, the highest peak in the UK, as a fundraising challenge. A keen walker, Rachael works as a youth worker and mental health practitioner, using outdoor activities to support the people she works with.
After nearly a decade of developing various symptoms, Rachael became very unwell with an infection before Christmas last year, leading to a fraught period of tests and appointments. Rachael was referred to an immunologist when her tests showed panhypogammaglobulinemia, and she was diagnosed in February 2023.
In addition to her challenge, Rachael wanted to raise awareness of PID’s and began writing a blog to document her journey through diagnosis and her progress to climbing Ben Nevis. Rachael shows an informative and candid account of her condition as well as the treatment and management she is learning to live with. She balances this with magical descriptions of her adventures in training, from the coastlines of Cornwall to the wild Scottish Munros, with a blog that is both moving and delightful. If you’d like to read it, you can find it at www.threepeakspidandme.weebly.com
Rachael smashed through her fundraising target and successfully completed her challenge at the end of September 2023.
Thank you so much Rachel for supporting Immunodeficiency UK.
