Swimming for Australia has always been a dream of mine. But this was almost cut short when I was 13 years old. 

My mum noticed something unusual about how I was walking and mentioned it during a visit to the GP. I was referred to Dr. Angus Gray, a paediatric orthopaedic specialist at Sydney Children’s Hospital, Randwick who diagnosed me with Scoliosis – a curvature of the spine. 

I had surgery where rods were inserted into my back to straighten my spine. It was strange waking up afterwards without the ability to move my arms or legs. 

Although the recovery was challenging, I was able to get back into the pool within two months, which helped my mental health tremendously.

Every month I needed to have x-rays, to ensure that everything was healing properly, but it was such an uncomfortable experience that I dreaded it every time. They had to put weights around my stomach and move me around which was quite painful.

A year and a half after my first surgery, I noticed a lump at the top of my spine. An x-ray showed that my rod had slipped off my spine and started to pierce through my skin. I was in excruciating pain.

Finding out I had to have another surgery, made me so upset because I remembered the pain from the first one. After making so much progress in my recovery, I had to do it all over again. 

The second time around, my doctors at Sydney Children’s Hospital, Randwick had access to a new piece of equipment called an EOS Imaging Suite, which made my recovery a lot easier. They were able to take full-body x-ray images, so I was no longer strapped to painful weights. It was a much faster and more comfortable experience. It wasn’t until later that I learned the equipment was funded by Sargent’s Pies Charitable Foundation, a generous donor of Sydney Children’s Hospitals Foundation. 

Since my second surgery, I’ve switched from endurance to sprint events and am now competing as a para-athlete rather than an able-bodied athlete. 

Despite everything, I enjoy swimming as much as ever and I’m still aiming to represent Australia in the 2024 Paralympics in Paris.

Thanks to the generosity of our Movement of Many, in FY22 SCHF was able to fund 97 vital pieces of equipment that help ensure sick kids like Hannah continue to receive the best possible care, now and into the future.