Mother and daughter with life-limiting illnesses find escape through FIT Jacks

There’s no medication that can cure the illnesses which impact Caroline Davies and Amy-Claire Lanman, but nutrition and exercise is crucial to improving their health and wellbeing.

That’s why when the mother and daughter duo saw Swansea City AFC Foundation’s advert for a new FIT Jacks cohort starting in Pontardawe Leisure Centre, they jumped at the opportunity to sign up.

FIT Jacks is a free,12-week healthy lifestyle programme which combines exercise sessions with classroom activities – a perfect setup for Davies, 61, and Lanman, 30, to achieve their goals.

“Both of us have always had a really big passion for health and fitness” said Lanman.

“We both have life-limiting, chronic illnesses and it can be really hard to keep on top of your fitness when you’re feeling well, so when you have a condition which can cause a lot of ups and downs it’s even harder.

“Over the last year we’d just lost that passion and put weight on, so we needed something that gave us more motivation and that sense of community as well.

“I have a complex multisystem disease of unknown aetiology, which is a posh way of saying nothing works how it’s meant to, but no has been able to find the genetic cause, they just know it’s there.

“Part of the thing I find hard with motivation is that it’s a degenerative disease so I have muscle wastage, and it does get worse as time passes. There’s nothing I can do about that and actually the only thing that will slow that disease progression is exercise and physiotherapy.”

Davies reiterated the importance of exercise and nutrition, as she explained how FIT Jacks has felt like an escape from her everyday caring duties.

“Myself and Amy have always realised that there is no one tablet that fixes what we have, but there are things that can help and improve it,” added Davies.

“A critical part of what helps and improves our health and our wellbeing is trying to be as fit as we can to manage the bad times because our recovery is better, and also nutrition is critical to being well.

“I have a condition which is really rare called severe refractory eosinophilic asthma, which means I have very poor lung capacity and function. I have Psoriatic arthritis which affects my joints, my tendons, everything, the pain is excruciating, the deformities are horrible. I also have really severe anaphylaxis.

“In addition to that I needed FIT Jacks because Amy lives with me full-time and then I care for my sister-in-law and my husband, and that’s hard. It means sometimes there’s nothing left in the pot for me.

“I’m an all-or-nothing person and FIT Jacks has made me give myself permission to be kind to myself. I would push myself to do something because exercise is like my escape.”