I wanted to be 50 and FABULOUS

Powerless, out of breath and my cheeks burning with embarrassment, I watched my colleagues lift a poorly, stricken lady into a wheelchair and whisk her inside the emergency room. ‘You couldn’t help her,’ I chastised myself, following behind as shame bubbled under my size XL scrubs. I’d been a nurse 10 years and loved working in the busy A&E at University Hospital Ayr, but that day, in the summer of 2014, I’d never felt so guilty or low, because, at 46, my weight was so out of control I hadn’t been able to help a patient in need.

‘I hadn’t been able to help a patient in need’