Episode 39: Season 3...In Conversation with...the amazing Chloe McBratney "Dont let anyone tell you that you cant"

The story of todays guest Chloe McBratney, is one that will inspire millions of people around the world in the coming. months and years. She has defied all expectations in her young life to date and continues to shine as a guiding light that your circumstances do not have to define your future. In her formative years, she was formally diagnosed with bilateral optic nerve hypoplasia at just 18 months old, a condition that under develops the optic discs causing challenges to vision. One day Chloe knows she will loose her sight all together and, as she faces that fact, she intends to do as much good as she can to leave the game in a better place than she found it for her and millions of others. Now 27, today Chloe is an UEFA B coach, Welsh club Cardiff City's under-19s assistant goalkeeper coach, head coach of Barry Town FCs pan-disability team and a full-time special education needs multi-sport coach for Cardiff City Foundation.Chloe, from Barry in the Vale of Glamorgan, Wales, first became aware of her visual impairment in primary school. She had a specialist teacher assigned to her to teach her and the teachers themselves."My eyes themselves are healthy, but it's the optic nerves that are damaged - the visual pathway from your eyes to your brain," she explains."As you get older you learn a lot more, I didn't understand really what a visual impairment was. To me it was just that I was half blind and couldn't see out of one eye and can kind of see out of the other. I adapted really well. I was always really adventurous, I would still go out. I would go to the park and climb trees," she said.Her parents encouraged her to do everything every other child did. "They didn't stop me from doing anything," she says. "They said 'you have to experience the world like everybody else'."As I've got older my sight has deteriorated and I've lost more sight." Chloe has also been diagnosed with neurological condition Grey matter heterotopia, which causes her to have seizures, as well chronic illnesses including Ehlers-Danlos syndrome which affects the connective tissue in her body. Chloe also lives with chronic fatigue, brain fog and chronic pain.Notwithstanding all this, Chloe has coaching dreams and aspirations and wants to inspire and offer strength to the coaching community, so she shares her story and her philosophy with us today in this very special episode of the pro player podcast.