BHF Weekend Stunner 2012
A fantastic insight into the lives of people with heart conditions. Written by Year 13 pupil Karl Murray;
In your day-to-day contact with people in school or your area, how many do you think have heart complaints? The sudden death of Patrick Dinsmore two years ago in the College certainly made us more aware of the need for screening to hopefully identify heart defects as early as possible. It’s unlikely to meet someone with a heart condition like yourself in your country, and it’s very rare that you meet a group of people from around the UK and Ireland who are the same age as yourself with heart conditions too but in the past year both have happened to me because of the British Heart Foundation. Last December the first ever Meet@Teen event in Ireland was held in Belfast and I was lucky enough to meet 3 other young people with heart conditions. This was the first time I had met others with heart conditions the same as myself.
A few months later I received the BHF news letter with details about a ‘Weekend Stunner’. The Weekend Stunner happens normally every 2 years and is a weekend away for teens aged 13-19 in theUKandIrelandwith heart conditions. After reading about it I went straight onto the website and signed up for it straight away. At the start of August I got an email confirming my place on the Weekend Stunner. They had a Facebook page where you introduced yourself and got to know the others that were going to be on the weekend. The group seemed to be very diverse, from different backgrounds, different communities but with one thing in common – we all had heart problems.
Whenever the weekend came I had to fly over fromBelfasttoLondonby myself and after a delayed flight I finally arrived in Heathrow. After waiting a while, train swapping, getting a taxi and running in the rain we had finally arrived in Chingford at Gillwell Park! Some had travelled far to get here such as from Scotland and South Wales, while others had came from only down the road but friendships were soon formed.