Your stories

If I enter a raffle I'm going to win it. I might not get first prize, but definitely those soaps or that travel alarm clock is coming home with me. I guess I'm just a very lucky person. Not just in games of chance, but in most aspects of life - I do specialise in raffles though.

Sometimes, I have brief spells of what initially appear to be misfortune. However, looking back on the most obvious occasions, it's all worked out for the best and made me into the annoying optimist I am today.

One of these times was about three years ago. I was in Sardinia on a rock climbing holiday. We'd arrived at the apartment late the night before and just crashed out on arrival.

Drew's swollen feet during his illness

I woke early and rubbed my eyes as I staggered to the bathroom, it was then I realised things weren't right. I looked at myself in the mirror and it became clear, or as clear as it could through my now tiny eye slits. I was unwell. My eyelids had ballooned up. I'd got acute kidney failure.

The next week reminded me of a scene from a horror film, where the man changes into a hairy long-toothed werewolf. My transformation was a little slower and into a slightly less impressive beast, but I was definitely becoming a pig - much to the amusement of my less than sympathetic climbing companions.

First I had the piggy eyes, then my once delicate ankles became trotters. I'd put on three stone by the time the drugs kicked in. A veritable cocktail of 21 tablets a day at the hazy climax, at which point I progressed to looking like a large white leather sofa.

It was hard to imagine only a few short weeks before I'd been a svelte and athletic rock climber.

I spent the winter months mainly being very ill. Too sick to walk, too delicate to eat or sleep and in constant pain. I wasn't allowed to eat any potassium - try an internet search for foods that don't contain potassium if you want a laugh, there's not many festive ones!

So Christmas and New Year consisted of either sitting in a darkened room with my trotters elevated or talking to God on the big white phone. Pretty normal Yuletide by a lot of people's standards!

Drew Haigh in Thailand before he was ill

Sorry, I digress... I got better. Quickly. It started with small goals. Walk to the front gate. Phew! Have a sit down, stop shaking, then back to the chair. Next, walk to the corner of the road, more shaking, more chair. This continued until I could slowly jog - and then even start rock climbing again.

Before the illness I was a bit handy at climbing. I'd been a full-time climber travelling all over the world for more than a decade. Living in Thailand every winter; Spain or Italy every spring; Germany or the UK in summer and Eastern Europe for autumn.

I'd been one of the top climbers in Britain. But, then I'd had no urge to do competitions. I enjoyed climbing for the sake of it, it was its own reward. I had nothing to prove. But now, I had to prove to myself that I was well and strong again. So bring on the comps!

I trained, like a machine. It was a daunting challenge to come back from nothing, I thought it would take years, but my body, weak as it had been, had remembered things. It adapted well and responded quickly to the physical abuse I was now putting it through.

Drew in Spain just before he was ill

I entered my first event four months later: the British Climbing Team selection, against the best climbers in the UK. I won. I was the only person to climb every route without falling, not once, all day. Now I compete for Great Britain.

Last year's World Cup and European Cup events were some of the proudest moments of my life.

Drew Haigh