Freedom, confidence, a sense of achievement. Emma Suddaby doesn’t strike you as lacking in any of the above. In fact she appears to have all three in abundance, writes Tracy O’Sullivan.But appearances can be deceptive. While Emma’s spirit is only too willing, her body is weak. Ravaged by aggressive destructive rheumatoid arthritis, this is one 34-year-old who has had to accept that life just isn’t as simple as going for the things you want.
That doesn’t mean she has given up on trying. Despite a crippling disease which is taking its toll, Emma is determined - determined to keep walking, determined to win back a sense of adventure and more importantly determined to be the person she wants to be.
I was the one looking lost as she shouted to me while I was searching along a road in Ford, near Shrewsbury, for her flat where we were to meet for the interview.
“Are you Tracey,” she called as she stood in her doorway waiting for me with her two pet dogs.
“Yes,” I answered, and she strode out to meet me with a wide smile and warm greeting.
For most of us that’s a given, but for Emma it’s something of a miracle. She has defied doctors to keep walking 12 years after she was first diagnosed with a disease which viciously attacks the joints of the body and is extremely painful.
Emma was a young and ambitious woman when doctors first told her she had RA. Now she admits that she left that meeting only worried about a few aches and pains but was soon to realise that it was going to have a devastating effect on her life.
“I didn’t understand it at first and probably didn’t want to,” said Emma.
“The best way I had of coping was to pretend it wasn’t happening. To just ignore it. Then when it did start having such a major impact on what I could do, I did get very down about it. But the problem with that was that I got bored of it. I got bored of being depressed. So I went for a coffee and decided to just get on with it.”
And while Emma has done just that, she has not stopped there. She moved to Shropshire to be near her mother who was living in Dorrington and luckily found herself living near to the specialist Robert Jones and Agnes Hunt Orthopaedic Hospital near Oswestry.
Since her diagnosis Emma has undergone a series of operations - sometimes as many as five a year. More often than not they are elective, but very much a sign of a woman not ready to give in.
“I’m 34, there’s no way I am ready for a wheelchair. I was warned that could happen but I will do whatever it takes to stay mobile. I want to keep walking and retain as much of my independence as possible,” added Emma, who has had among other things two knee replacements, two hip replacements, an elbow replacement and had her wrists and ankles fused.
Her independence is precious and that now stretches to doing amazing things. Emma remembers fondly a friend asking about what she missed most from before her diagnosis.
“I told her that I missed running, jumping off things, being able to be active and adventurous and moving freely. Because after my diagnosis I was constantly told to be careful and I was told that because sudden movements and stretching are extremely painful. But that’s what I miss.”
Not too long after that conversation her friend told her about a report she had seen on the Flying Scholarships for the Disabled organisation.
“I wasted no time in applying. I’d no idea at the time what a pivotal decision that would turn out to be,” said Emma.
“After a nail-biting couple of months, I was called to RAF Cranwell with the other short-listed 23 candidates for three days of medical checks, aptitude tests and interviews and I won 35 hours of flying time as part of a scholarship last summer.
“Weeks later I arrived at Goodwood and the row of planes lined up outside the clubhouse had my stomach in knots, but knots of anticipation, not fear, as I was dying to get airborne.
“Over the course of the next few weeks, my confidence grew, along with my knowledge. It’s been a long time since I’ve asked so much of my brain and even longer since anything was asked of my body - it felt amazing to be back in the driving-seat of life.
“And while everybody there was understanding and helpful, no-one made exceptions for me, or my disability. That was very important to me, because I wanted to know by the end of the Scholarship that I could fly an aeroplane on my own without being coddled or assisted through it.
“And the day I flew solo for the first time made every small struggle and painful moment worthwhile. I just cannot adequately describe what it felt like to take control of that little plane, stream down the runway, and take-off into the big, blue sky.
“After years of imprisonment in my painful, failing body, I was now using it to achieve ultimate freedom - without help, without someone on hand in case I couldn’t manage - here I was, piloting a plane, 2,000 ft above the Sussex countryside. “In that one month I’d achieved more than in the last 11 years. I’ve spent so long dealing with my illness: hospitals, operations and wading through all the tiny, daily struggles that is what it is to live with RA, winning this Scholarship has been like stepping through a window, into a bright new world.
“It was wonderful to have a sense of achievement - to have something that wasn’t about my illness. To have people who would trust me with a plane, on my own, and not tell me that I couldn’t do it because my body would let me down.
“I have come to accept that I have RA and that I am disabled - something that I didn’t accept for a long time - but it’s not all that I am.”
And Emma is also determined to prove just that.
“Now I’m back home, I have decided to set myself the further challenge of achieving my National Private Pilot’s Licence, and I would love to do a parachute jump.
“I just can’t thank enough, all the amazing people involved with FSD, for giving me back a belief in myself - the belief that I can achieve something like single-handedly flying a plane.”
One Comment
very very brave girl