A Pre-Christmas plea

What does a girl have to do to raise money for her chosen charity?

I’ve just completed a significant world first. Becoming the first person to demonstrate that their post-mastectomy silicone reconstruction can take more than 3 G by looping the loop in an aerobatic plane is newsworthy was a challenge on many levels. Getting the money together to pay for it (I still have chronic fatigue), through to arranging it, turning up at the airfield on the day (the hardest personal challenge) and getting people to donate (the most time consuming thing of all) has all been very demanding, and I’m only realising how much it took out of me with the perspective due to time. When I thought it would be all over bar the fundraising, for over 4 days I felt both ill and desperately tired, then my arm started swelling in reaction. That at least is something I knew to be a possibility as lymphoedema is common for people who’ve had their lymph nodes removed and unlike the exploding-implant claim really can occasionally occur as a result of normal commercial flights.

Reflections in a Pitts (not a plane I've been in... yet)

I’ve still not reached my funding target, so if you haven’t already, please donate. Tweet, +1 and share the links and ask your friends to donate as well. So many kids with cancer would benefit from a bike or trike. Imagine how happy they’d be if their bicycle arrived for Christmas, and how very much their lives might ease as a result.

If these are the lengths a girl has to go to raise money for her chosen charity in difficult times, I’m up for it and will do it again. Next year I hope to be the first European woman to cycle the Dragon Trail in Bhutan. If manufacturers and doctors say say I can take it, I’ll take my tit to 8G too. K6XW3H5DBGTR

So please donate to Cyclists Fighting Cancer. You'll find all the links you need in the right hand column of this page.