Written by Ruby Hennessy-Grant
For as long as I can remember, my identity was shaped by illness. Diagnosed as a child with a rare immunodeficiency, much of my life was structured around hospital visits, treatment schedules, and the quiet hope of simply staying well. When I got to the age of choosing a career, stability was my priority.
I pursued my degree in Nuclear Medicine and landed a well-paying job in a private hospital. It felt like a smart decision, a safe one, with good job prospects and proximity to the treatment still necessary for my own survival. I wasn’t lit up by the work; in fact, I was exhausted by it. As a sensitive and deeply empathetic person, compassion fatigue set in early, and the hours required to work in this hospital exhausted my own chronically ill body to the point I was barely functional.

Still, having worked so hard for my degree and stability, I stayed for years, convincing myself that this was what it meant to be responsible.
And then the unexpected happened, after more than two decades of treatment, we took a chance on pausing my treatment. One month turned into two, then a year… and my health held strong. I was twenty-six I spent my first month outside a hospital.
For the first time in my life, I was able to make choices with the looming weight of illness overhead. A few years prior to this, I became interested in strength training, initially as a way to feel stronger in a body I had long seen as fragile. What started as a hobby turned into something more profound. I discovered not only a physical resilience I didn’t know I had, but also a love of nutrition. I retrained as a Sports Nutritionist, eventually leaving Nuclear Medicine to take a chance on my own nutrition business.

In my pursuit of nutrition education, which wasn’t solely limited to the binary teachings within the fitness world, I stumbled into reading about nutrition from the perspective of journalists and anthropologists in journals like Gastronomica. Here I found even more of a fire in seeking knowledge about food – our food systems, culture and the ‘why’s of eating. To look at food and all its wonderful facets.
And it’s this passion that has brought me back to university to study Sustainable Agriculture, as I still run my nutrition business. Studying this now feels like the most honest step I’ve taken toward myself. It links together my lived experience with chronic illness, my professional background, and a deep desire to contribute to something bigger.

Changing careers wasn’t easy, especially after investing years into the “sensible” path. But I’ve come to learn that I will never be content seeking stability to survive. I need passion, autonomy and creative thinking to thrive. Above all, I have learned that it’s okay if your first career choice wasn’t your final one. Studying again, shifting paths, starting over – it’s absolutely scary, but it’s never too late to choose something that feels right.
Charlie blog is a SSAF funded initiative