Cystic fibrosis may be a killer disease, but it's not going to stop Vicky Bettany living life to the full. Her latest fund-raising stunt is abseiling down the Tyne Bridge. STEPHEN LEWIS reports

'IT IS a good place to abseil off, with me being a Newcastle fan," says Vicky Bettany. "I'm quite looking forward to it." It's not quite the answer I'm expecting when I ask her if the prospect of dangling 85 feet above the ground from the Tyne Bridge makes her at all nervous - but then Vicky has a habit of saying the slightly unexpected. A 'rebel with a cause', her brother Andrew calls her.

Vicky's got a cause, all right. At 25, she has been a life-long sufferer from the life-threatening inherited disease Cystic Fibrosis.

Her lungs, constantly clogged up by a thick, sticky mucous, have suffered permanent damage - and so has her pancreas, which aids digestion.

But Vicky, from Swann Street in York, has never been one to take her condition lying down. When brother Andrew, now 30, said he was going to abseil down the Tyne Bridge to raise money for the Cystic Fibrosis Trust, which is leading the hunt for a genetic therapy to control the disease, she said she'd like to do it too.

"A lot of people said I wouldn't dare," she says. "So I'm going to prove them wrong! My dad thinks I'm mad, but I've always loved roller-coasters!"

Actually, it will be climbing up to the point from which to begin the abseil that will be most difficult, she concedes.

"I don't do much exercise because of my lungs not working properly," she admits. "So climbing up on top of the bridge in a Force 10 gale, which it is bound to be, will not be too easy." Luckily Andrew, an accountant with York firm General Legal Protection spent 11 years in the TA, and is an experienced abseiler. He will be there with her to make sure she gets through okay.

"I can see myself piggy-backing her up the hill if there are any steps," he says fondly. "But coming down she'll be in her element!"

Half-a-dozen people from Andrew's firm will be taking part in the charity event on Sunday February 18, which is being organised by the Cystic Fibrosis Trust's Northern and Yorkshire regional office. They became involved because General Legal Protection's managing director Andre Scruton is a friend of Clive Carnazza, the chairman of the York branch of the Cystic Fibrosis Trust. Clive's own daughter Kim is a CF sufferer.

From abseilers in York alone the charity hopes to raise up to £6,000 from the stunt.

It's money that will go to a good cause. There are 7,500 people in the UK who suffer from Cystic Fibrosis - making it the country's most common life-threatening inherited disease. One out of every 25 people is a carrier of the CF gene - and if they have a child with another carrier, there is a one in four chance their child will suffer from the condition.

At the moment, there is no cure, though drugs, physiotherapy and proper diets have helped extend the life expectancy of sufferers to about 30.

But already the gene that causes CF has been identified - and the Cystic Fibrosis Trust says it's confident that within five to ten years it will have perfected a gene therapy that can halt the progress of the disease: meaning that instead of being a killer, it could become a manageable condition like asthma.

Vicky accepts that for her, it may be too late, because her lungs are already too badly damaged. "But the young kids, they have got a real chance," she says.

Her own quality of life has been much improved, she says, since she was put on new drugs last year. And instead of brooding on her condition, she aims to live life to the full.

It's very easy, she says, for her life to revolve around a constant daily regime of pills, pills and more pills - antibiotics to help fight infections, enzymes to help with digestion, even vitamins because her ailing digestive system means she can't get the vitamins she needs out of ordinary food. She also needs to have a nebuliser - a kind of inhaler which sprays drugs directly into the lungs to fight infection and help her breathe more easily - constantly to hand.

But she's determined the drugs won't take over her life completely.

"I try to live around the drugs," she says. "I don't want to be too limited by my illness. I've got a good social life now, and I just want to have as much of a normal life as I can."

Abseiling down the Tyne Bridge sounds just the thing.

u To sponsor Vicky or Andrew, call Andrew at work on 01904 611600.

The Cystic Fibrosis Trust can provide information and advice about the condition. Contact its website at www.cftrust.org.uk or call 020 8464 7211.