About

I started this blog initially to serve as a way for myself to speak out about issues surrounding PKU and to share my experiences of

Excuse the close up, it's all I could find!

living with PKU with others. Over time, Living with PKU has transformed into a resource for recipes I have tried and tested. It is now undergoing another transformation as I try to provide more useful information about PKU rather than only recipes and my personal thoughts and beliefs. Ultimately, my aim is for Living with PKU to be useful.

As for me… I am an adult with Classical PKU. I grew up in a relatively isolated part of regional Queensland before packing up and jetting off to England when I was 22 for what was meant to be a working holiday. I ended up meeting the man who is now my husband and so remained in England for three years, until the recession hit. Both out of work, we returned to Australia and lived in Melbourne for two years, where I had the great fortune to meet some wonderful fellow PKUers who I now count as some of my closest friends.

In March 2011, after two years of less than ideal clinical care for my PKU, we returned to England. I was pleased to get back to the superior level of support and clinical care available through my clinic in London.

I am also a mother to my mischievous, cheeky and utterly delightful toddler daughter, Elliana, and stepmother to the gorgeous Isaac (neither of whom have PKU).

My passion for supporting those with PKU plays a huge role in my life and it is because of this passion that I am one of the current and founding members of the Board of Directors for the Metabolic Disease Foundation. I handle marketing and PR for MDF, which is an international not-for-profit organisation, and this is largely due to my professional background in journalism and PR.

Personally, my wish is to expand my beautiful family and raise happy, healthy children.

Now, to finish… Ten totally random facts about me.

1. I can speak Japanese. Well, actually I used to be able to speak, read and write Japanese but I haven’t used it in so long that I have forgotten a lot of it.
2. When I was pregnant with my daughter I worked as a plus sized maternity model.
3. My lifelong ambition of being a world class equestrienne was shattered after a terrifying fall off a horse two weeks before I was due to take up a position as a hand and rider for a prestigious dressage yard in Belgium. I broke several ribs, cracked the inside of my rotator cuff and did extensive soft tissue damage to my entire back. A year later I found out that I had also broken a vertebrae and, partly due to being diagnosed, it healed badly. I was forced to turn the position down and I no longer ride even though I will always love horses.
4. I love the beach but hate the sand.
5. I LOVE snow. Seriously. It makes winter worth it! I also don’t understand people who don’t like snow.
6. I spent several years answering to the nickname Pop Tart, a name acquired after I seriously burned my hand on a pop tart on the first day of my first ever representative beach volleyball tournament.
7. Thinking about the effects that years of high phe levels may have had on my body truly terrifies me.
8. I love fairy bread. Yes. Fairy bread. The stuff childhood memories are made of!
9. I spent one week working as a sushi chef when I was 21.
10. I can’t stand cooked peppers, onion or mange tout. In fact, grilled veggies in general. Therefore, one of my pet peeves with life here in the UK is that when dining out any ‘vegetable’ meal tends to consist of pretty much nothing but peppers and onions. Yuck!