2022 Winner
Lucy Smith
Youngest Scot diagnosed with motor neurone disease has raised more than £250,000 for others and defied the odds to become a mum.
In 2013, Lucy was about to start a business course at college following a year working at an American summer camp when her future changed forever. Doctors told her that a limp and slurred speech she had developed were symptoms of incurable and life-limiting motor neurone disease. They gave her just 18 months to live.
A diagnosis at 19 is incredibly rare but instead of cursing her bad luck, Lucy set out to make the most of the life she had left. She has since been busy ticking off the 45 items on her bucket list. Now aged 27, she has been dubbed the MND Warrior, raising more than £200,000 for charity MND Scotland to help find a cure, despite knowing any breakthrough may not come in time to save her own life.
She and partner Tommy Smith were also determined to become parents despite doctors telling Lucy was told it was too risky to go through a pregnancy with MND at her time of diagnosis.
In February 2020, she gave birth to son LJ, coming off her medication to conceive. She was one of only five MND patients to become mothers after diagnosis. Defying doctors’ expectations and in what doctors say is a world first, she and Tommy recently welcomed a second baby, a daughter they named AR, into the world.
Tommy said: “She took to motherhood like a duck to water. This was the job she was destined to do. I just love watching her with them and the pure love she has in her eyes. A lot of people did write her off and said she would not be able to do it. She has proved them all wrong. She is a fantastic mum.”
Lucy married the father of her “miracle children” in front of delighted family and friends in May, at Inchberry Hall near Fochabers in Morayshire.
Following the emotional day she said: “I feel like the luckiest woman in the world now I have my husband and both my babies. We couldn’t be more delighted.”