An Tayside man who was once given just four weeks to live has completed a gruelling 117-mile challenge before falling to his knee.
However, it was not exhaustion that caused David Ogilvie’s dramatic completion of the Fife Coastal Path.
The 35-year-old from Arbroath, who suffers from Crohn’s disease, used the occasion to ask his girlfriend Judith Ann Hunter to marry him.
Mr Ogilvie carried the engagement ring on every step of the eight-day trek and it was made worthwhile when Judith Ann, 35, from Broughty Ferry, agreed to become his wife.
He said: “During the walk I did have points I struggled with pains in my feet and the thought of proposing did help me focus and will me along, I carried the ring the whole way and slept with it in my pocket every night.
“It’s true I never felt anyone would love me, having Crohn’s disease but I was lucky I met Judith three years ago and we got on so well from the beginning.
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“I spent New Year in Ninewells Hospital with a virus that really floored me and Judith was amazing for me at that time, through my surgeries and so many times in hospital – at that point I knew I wanted her in my life forever.
“The fact when I proposed and Judith said yes it means so much. We are already massively close but now our relationship moves forward in a much stronger way.”
Mr Ogilvie, who was diagnosed with Crohn’s disease aged just 18, has taken on a series of challenges since he recovered from life-saving surgery to remove his large bowel in 2014, having been told he would have four weeks to live if he did not have the operation.
In 2017 he marked three years since the surgery by successfully climbing two Munros in one day – Mayar and Driesh in Glen Doll.
Mr Ogilvie, who works at AM Phillip’s Trucktech in Forfar, has since managed to bag a series of other Munros.
In 2018 he walked 96 miles over six days along the West Highland Way, camping each night to raise money for the Crohn’s and Colitis UK charity.
The Fife Coastal Walk was his biggest challenge yet and Mr Ogilvie said it was something he couldn’t have imagined being able to do a few years ago.
“A lot of my friends thought I was crazy taking this on and camping every night but I was so determined to challenge myself in this way.
“Every day on the walk I woke up with a new pain and blister and every morning it took me longer to pack my tent away and pack my bag in the mornings.
“I really hope others living with Crohn’s can look at me doing this and draw some sort of inspiration that even having Crohn’s it doesn’t need to stop you.
“The pain and suffering the illness brings is difficult to deal with – I want to show that it can get better and you can live life and enjoy it.”
