Lottie Unlimited

We interrupt your work day to bring you this important newsflash...

DELIVERY UPDATE!

So, the driver "attempted delivery" to an address in Stoke Bruerne Notice Board yesterday, on Rookery Lane. Apparently they left a calling card, but i don't believe that he did. The photographic evidence was a blurry picture of his fingers.

And so DHL announced that I was the first drop this morning and I should expect my delivery between 9:37 and 10:37 this morning. It is now 12:32. The pretty squiggle map showing that I am the next delivery has disappeared from the tracking page and Halfords are unable to process a refund until the item has been returned to them.

If I'm lucky, I might get a refund by the end of next week. Upset does not cover my feelings right now.

So close to a happy day. New wheels from Halfords, delivered by DHL. Unfortunately, the latter decided to attempt delivery to a property in Stoke Bruerne, some 10 miles away and not even close to our postcode.

Honestly, could not make it up.

It's an exciting day for Team Ophelia! Just waiting on DHL to deliver the new wheels 🛞 🛞

It's an exciting day for Team Ophelia! New wheels are due to be delivered this afternoon 🙌

This is all possible because people are truly amazing. I love you all!

Fundraiser by Charlotte Banks : Keep Lottie Rolling https://share.google/psbwUz8Rg1VVeboSl

https://www.facebook.com/share/p/1C2arMJ1gU/

The story is live!

A mother who used to run marathons now uses a wheelchair full-time after a mystery flare-up of fibromyalgia left her in constant pain and unable to leave the house, but she is fundraising to get back to racing in a specialist wheelchair.

Charlotte Crane, 51, known as Lottie, was diagnosed with fibromyalgia in 2018 after experiencing six years of full-body pain, headaches, neuralgia and brain fog.

Despite her diagnosis, Lottie was a keen runner, taking part in weekly Parkruns, countless races, and even the London Marathon in 2024, finding the exercise helped relieve her symptoms, but by the end of 2024 she began to find walking more difficult.

In September 2025, Lottie – who has three children named Chloe, 31, Eko, 25, and Harry, 19 and lives in Northampton with her husband James – had surgery which she hoped would relieve her pain and bring back her mobility.

However, it had the opposite effect: Lottie experienced a “rapid decline” and now needs to use a wheelchair full-time, and doctors still are not sure what is causing it.

After almost a year of feeling “so low”, spending weeks at a time without leaving the house and being unable to take part in the sport she loves, Lottie is fundraising to fix up a second-hand racing wheelchair so that she can get back to her lifeline exercise.

“I think people don’t realise that a lot of the time people with disabilities want to be active, they want to be able to get out there, and it’s just not physically possible or financially possible,” Lottie told PA Real Life.

“The estimate is it costs £10,000 more a year to be a disabled person than it would be to be able-bodied.

“(My) racing chair would have been £1,200 new, and then there’s everything that goes on top of that, all your accessories… You can’t just join a regular gym because there’s very few gyms that are actually wheelchair accessible.

“I have hit some real lows because I’ve gone from being this really active person to suddenly I can’t stand to do the washing up.”

Lottie was diagnosed with fibromyalgia – a long-term condition that causes pain all over the body and brings symptoms such as muscle stiffness, brain fog, headaches and fatigue, according to the NHS – in 2018, after six years of struggling.

“Up until the diagnosis, it was mostly just frustration,” she said.

“All over body pain, headaches, neuralgia, and fibro fog is one of the worst things, you feel your mind just disappearing. But I adapted.

“The diagnosis made it a little easier because then I could kind of adjust myself. I knew what it was, I knew how I needed to look after myself, and I knew how I needed to advocate for myself at the doctor’s to get the right medications.”

Lottie said she was “always mobile”, though occasionally had problems with her hips, and found that “the best way for me to manage my fibro was keeping active”.

Running became a lifeline for her, as her gait was different while running than walking which meant she could manage her pain, and it brought immense mental health benefits, too.

“I found this freedom, this time when I wasn’t in pain, and it was wonderful,” she said.

Lottie had been a keen runner as a child, competing at county level and running the London Junior Marathon, now called the TCS Mini London Marathon, when she was 15, and she said that rediscovering the sport at 45 was “a complete breath of fresh air”.

She made plenty of friends in running groups, would attend weekly Parkruns and regularly ran races from five kilometres up to half marathons, even running the TCS London Marathon in 2024 raising funds for Fibromyalgia UK.

However, by late 2024 Lottie began to have more difficulty walking, with increased pain in her hips making it harder for her to stay mobile.

Through a private pain consultant, which she could access through her work’s private medical care scheme, she was booked in for radiofrequency ablation on both sides of her sacroiliac joint, which connects the spine to the pelvis, in September 2025.

The procedure uses heat from radiowaves to destroy nerve endings causing chronic pain, and Lottie had hoped that it would solve her problems, but said that “unfortunately, it hasn’t”.

“It’s never a guarantee that it’s going to work, and the pain just became more and more and more,” she said.

“I’ve ended up at the point where I can’t stand for long periods of time, can’t walk.”

Since the procedure was ineffective, doctors remain unsure what is causing Lottie’s severe pain.

She recently had an X-ray, and is awaiting a consultation about the results which she has been advised are “abnormal”, and in the meantime is cared for by her youngest child Harry, 19, and her husband James while continuing to work from home in her role as a bid co-ordinator.

“James has been my biggest cheerleader, along with my best friend Dannii and her partner Stav. I think I would be in a very, very dark place by now if it wasn’t for them,” she said.

Lottie remains desperate to get back to racing, and has been on the lookout for an affordable racing wheelchair, which cost around £1,200 new.

She was lucky enough to find a second-hand Flying Start racing wheelchair, which she lovingly named Ophelia, but it needs some pricey work to be ready for her to use.

The chair needs an anti-tip bar adding, work done to the brakes, and a new set of wheels, which cost up to £500 for a set.

She also needs to procure a helmet – “and you can’t go cheap with that because you can come out of those at quite a big speed,” she said – as well as a set of 3D gloves, as the chair is operated by the user ‘punching’ the wheels with their knuckles rather than pushing with their hands, and a pair of gloves costs upwards of £270.

“Once the chair is ready, I’m going to find a race for next year, and that’s what I’m going to train for,” Lottie said.

“It is just such a huge boost to my mental health, knowing I am getting out of the house and I’m doing something. I’ve got something to work towards again.”

Lottie is fundraising on GoFundMe – find out more at gofundme.com/f/keep-lottie-rolling.

✍Rachael Davis, PA Assistant Lifestyle Editor

Work begins on getting Ophelia race ready! All parts have been removed from the frame, ready for sanding and a coat of anti-rust primer. Some of the spokes are a wee bit crooked, and so replacement wheels are being considered. Had fun attempting to get the push rims off, still a few bolts to go but the heads have been rounded off so will need a special bit to get them off.

It's the start of a beautiful relationship!