I met Dr Emma Watson in my mid-twenties in the early 2000s. We were both working for a bowel cancer charity; a place which was challenging but encouraged a lot of bowel talk. This kind of envirmonment made it very easy to bond with Emma and we quickly discovered we had a lot in commmon. To this day, Emma and I talk about a lot of shit.
We also talk about our shared affliction; endometriosis. It's a complex disease and one that Emma has owned and fought head on for years.
Emma happens to be quite an amazing woman. A successful career woman at Imperial College, an inspirational fundraiser, an athlete and an academic (her thesis was 'Positional Scanning Soluble Libraries of Protease Inhibitors' which is something I can't pretend to understand). Put simply she likes a challenge.
She asked me to collaborate with her on a project called #waitingforthecall. She was to swim the English Channel as part of a relay team and was literally waiting for the phone call to say that conditions were right for her to make the swim. Her coach told her to always be ready.
She waited for that call for 3 months. Some of our pictures can be found here.
Emma managed to raise several thousand pounds with a trending justgiving page, gave interviews for magazines, raised awareness of the disease and encouraged women to get back in the pool. After her 13 hour swim, she gave a talk at the ICA and presented some of my pictures. She's awesome.
