Award-winning mom’s photo represents “staying positive” despite Ehlers Danlos Syndrome

 Wendy Pitts is an artist who stays positive while juggling 4 kids,  a business and Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome.

Ehlers Danlos Syndrome

Wendy is an artist with Ehlers Danlos Syndrome

INSPIRING residents living with long-term conditions and disabilities have been showing off their works of art after winning a competition to tell their story through a picture.

Organised by Warrington CCG, judges from the health board’s quality committee had the difficult task of choosing three winners before selecting the deserving trio in the adult, youngster and over 65 categories.

Bewsey mum Wendy Pitts’ entry was picked out depicting her 12-year-old daughter Alanah’s feet reaching up to the sky.

The 34-year-old was diagnosed with rare condition Ehlers Danlos Syndrome which means her joints frequently dislocate but the Angel cakes business woman says she does not let it stop her.

She added: “This picture is about me staying positive.”

“I’ve got four kids and a business to run so I can’t sit round feeling sorry for myself, I’ve just got to get on with things.”

“I had been getting dislocations since I was 12 but wasn’t diagnosed with the condition until three or four years ago.”

“It could happen just by rolling over in bed and on an average day I could have 10 partial dislocations or five or six full dislocations a week.”

“People think it must get easier over time but it really didn’t.”

Wendy said she was delighted to win a 12-month LiveWire fitness pass as swimming is the only exercise she can now do.

Lymm pensioner John North was the winner in the over 65 category after being diagnosed with rare nerve and muscle condition Myasthenia Gravis in 2012.

The 68-year-old’s family suffered the terrifying ordeal of John being in a medically induced coma for a week but his winning photograph of Thorpe Cloud in the Peak District symbolises his ambitions for the future.

The retired school teacher added: “I have lost 20 per cent of muscular strength in my shoulders and arms and I haven’t been to the top of Thorpe Peak since the 1980s but that’s the next project.

“I spent eight weeks in hospital but I feel very lucky doctors spotted my condition after I had a respiratory crash and at one stage I had effectively died.

“I’m chronically ill for the rest of my life now but my consultant’s advice was ‘Don’t let this stop you from doing anything that you want to do’.”

John, who has been married to Shirley for 34 years, picked up a £50 Culture Warrington voucher as his prize.

Dylan Lodgson, from Poplars and Hulme, picked up the final prize for this photo of his granddad Stephen Bennett’s house lit by a street lamp.

The 16-year-old Priestley College pupil added: “When my granddad was diagnosed with diabetes he didn’t let it stop him doing what he wanted and the light in the dark was like him being positive.

“My mum once asked him his dream and he said he wants to travel the world and diabetes hasn’t changed that for him.

“He is such an inspiration to me.”

 

 

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