Kim’s Step for REMAP Challenge

During May Our lovely client Kim is taking on the challenge of walking 5,000 steps a day on her prosthetic legs to raise money for REMAP, after we helped her with three separate solutions.

She tells her story in her own words:

My name is Kim Smith. I was in Spain when I started feeling unwell, I then suspected I might have a urine infection. I was getting worse and had a feeling it was something a bit more serious than just an infection, so went to the local hospital. They X-rayed my back and sent me away without any other tests. I went to the doctors the next day and was given a prescription for antibiotics. The chemist didn’t have any in stock and told me to come back the next day.

I woke at 4am and woke my husband saying, ‘I’m going to die, I need to go to hospital now.’ Once at hospital, I was almost immediately put into an induced coma.

I was a busy business owner of an events business and a mobile hairdresser before this happened. Not having hands, I can no longer work, but I’m now raising awareness of sepsis on social media with quite a big following. I also go all over doing talks, helping my local hospital raise awareness with staff training. I’m really enjoying doing what I do, it’s also vital we raise awareness because so many people still haven’t heard of sepsis or think it won’t affect them as they’re fit and healthy. This is wrong, anyone can develop sepsis at any time, at any age.

I heard about REMAP on Facebook. A page I was following shared that they’d had some help from REMAP, and so I contacted them. They helped me with several things, firstly raising my sofa, then making a gadget to help hold my profiling bed controller – before this gadget I had to sleep with it across my body all night, so it didn’t fall on the floor!

Then on one of REMAP’s social media posts, I saw a quad amputee eating her dinner, cutting her own food up. I haven’t been able to do this for over eight years since I lost my limbs, so I contacted REMAP and I’ve now got an incredible tool that holds my knife and I’m finally able to cut up my own food again – this is absolutely priceless.

Annie, the volunteer who made this for me, also made me a tool to hold a pen, so I can write, and a long stick-type-thing. This is for when I go to hospital to hold a dobber as I won’t be able to lift my arms for a while, so I’ll be able to use my iPad independently with the dobber held by this tool.

Because REMAP have done some incredible things for me and these last two are so impressive, I thought that I should try to do some fundraising for them and hope my followers will donate and support me.

I came up with the idea I’d try getting back on my prosthetic legs, known as stubbies as these are much shorter and don’t have a knee like a normal prosthetic legs. So, I’m fairly close to the floor currently. In time I might go higher, but I just want to be able to walk around my home. As I’ve now moved into a wheelchair-accessible home and have space to move, I’m going to challenge myself to do steps and try to increase the amount each week.

Hopefully I can raise lots of money for this incredible charity that has helped me.

Thank you, Kim, for sharing your story and being an inspiration to us all!

If you can donate any amount, large or small, to Kim’s Step for REMAP fundraiser, please do so using the link below.