Sharon Feinstein

The closest I’ve come to having to survive against all the odds is my weekly gym workout, Mondays ,Tuesdays and Wednesdays for two hours a time. Slightly more dramatically, British teenager Jamie Neale, who comes from a few miles away from my house, has just been found after surviving 12 days lost in the eucalyptus forests of New South Wales. His father had already told his mother, Give up, he’s dead. But it takes a certain mind set, dare I say the same one I use when I undertake my weekly gym sessions, to keep going in the face of those terrible odds.
What makes a survivor? It’s that fierce grit, determination, and machine-like will to get through. It’s also a question of optimism, keeping that light flickering at the end of the tunnel, the hope and belief that it will soon be over. If you can just keep taking one tiny step at a time, there will be another reality one day. A person can survive for three weeks without food but only 3 days without water– not me, I can just about survive 3 hours without a snack, preferably the sweet kind, and having water is an absolute chore. I might be gritty when it comes to the gym but deprive me of food and I crumble into a heap, so I would have been scrabbling round for plants, berries and even nettles if I’d been Jamie. Mind you, after recovering in hospital from dehydration and exposure and  then jumping on the scales to discover you’d lost a stone, you might have thought it was all worthwhile.

Please go to my site now, www.sharonfeinstein.co.uk, and see the Help Turtles page and maybe make a small donation to the campaign. Thanks. Trying to help THEM to survive too.