I am number 17 | A Rare Diseases Campaign

1 in 17 people in the UK will be affected by a rare disease1. I am number 17 is a campaign to help the voices of those with rare diseases to be heard. 

I was particularly interested in this brief having lost both my mother and father to extremely rare diseases. My dad had a very mysterious illness which took months and months to diagnose at King’s College Hospital, Londo. He was a fit guy having just climbed Mount Kilimanjaro with me 3 months before he fell ill.  An antibody found in his system called Anti-Hue that attacked his nervous system. Sadly, three years later, my mum was also diagnosed with a rare brain tumour and passed away 7 months later. Again she was one of the healthiest people I knew! The chances of both of my parents being diagnosed with such unusual illnesses is terrible luck but since this campaign, I now realise it’s not as rare as I initially thought. There are so many rare diseases out there that whilst there may not be many individual cases of a particular disease, the rare diseases community as a whole is a huge group. Understandable, with a rare disease, there isn’t the funding available for research and development that there is for more common life-threatening conditions. It’s heartbreaking and so frustrating to know that there is so much we still don’t understand about the human body.

This campaign hopes to broaden peoples knowledge of this issue and give a rare disease a voice.  I was partnered with the brilliant Jack Bridge a Paralympic Swimmer and world record holder.

‘For as long as I can remember, I have lived with haemophilia A, a rare bleeding disorder which means I have no factor VIII in my body to help with internal blood clotting. When I was little, I had a lot of bleeds into my elbow, knee and ankle joints, which are badly damaged as a result. This didn’t stop me from doing the sports I wanted to. After taking up swimming at the age of four, I never dreamed that I’d end up representing Team GB at the London 2012 and that it would be the best experience of my life, one that I will always be grateful for.’ Jack Bridge

Jack is an exceptional human that despite having limitations on his body, has accomplished more than most, overcoming both mental and physical barriers. I wanted to reflect the importance of swimming in shaping Jacks life, past, present and future through a blue palette, water droplets and sense of movement.  Living with Haemophilia, Jack had to learn the limits of his body at a young age. Vertical lines highlight these anatomical boundaries but also points of pain that Jack needs to continually manage.