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Jayne Knowles-Smith is 50 and suffering from chronic heart disease. She is determined not to let it rule her life. Here she talks about why life is so precious and how Cotswold Care Hospice is supporting her.

"Whenever I have to go for surgery or tests I always have my lip gloss under my pillow.

"As they wheel me along on the gurney, half out of it with medication, there I will be, touching up my lip gloss. That's just the way I am.

"Make-up is my mask – my way of coping with a chronic illness. At home I keep it in my bedside cabinet. Just because I feel like rubbish, doesn’t mean I should look like it!

"Four years ago, at the age of 46, I was diagnosed with cardiomyopathy – chronic heart disease. It came just two years after losing my husband Bob. He had been only 49.

"In May this year doctors determined that the cause of my heart disease is genetic. Now I must endure the worry of my 24 year-old son and 29-year-old daughter being tested for it.

"Less than 38 per cent of my heart functions properly. The only option in the long run may be a heart transplant but I am not ready to think about that yet. I am hiding my head in the sand.

"People see me and think I am lying about how ill I am. They think of heart disease and see little old ladies in their 70s – not a woman in her 40 wearing big showy jewellery which hides the scars, make-up and fantastic shoes.

"There are days when I can’t get out bed. Occasionally I need to use a walking frame. Without my friends, Mum , Angela, Elaine and Tony, who know when the bad days are and without them I would find coping harder.

"For a woman who tries to look her best it has been hard to cope with how the heart disease has changed my body shape and size. My body retains fluid to such an extent that I can wake up in the morning and be a size 16 and be a size 20 by the evening. There is nothing I can do about it but it is so demoralizing.

"But I don’t want people’s sympathy or pity. I don’t want to be patted on the head.

"There is far more support out there for cancer sufferers than heart disease sufferers. When my doctor suggested I should go to Cotswold Care Hospice in Minchinhampton, near Stroud, I told her she was mad.

"I’m not that ill, I argued. I’m not dying. In the end I agreed only to go to the hospice for a session of reflexology.

"There they suggested I had some counselling and they were right. I had never admitted I was really ill. My counsellor sees beyond the make-up and the hair – beyond my mask.

"I can talk to her about my fears of dying, for my children, for what lies ahead. At Cotswold Care I don’t have to put on a brave face. I can be me.

"The hospice staff helped me realise that I am coping with my illness, that my fears are rational ones. I don’t feel so isolated. They understand what I am going through when others don’t.

"People think I am macabre for having my funeral arranged and memory boxes done for my children.

"I also have a personal directive which states what treatment I wish to have to keep me alive and when I wish to be allowed to die.

"I certainly don’t plan to need any of those things in the near future! I am not afraid of dying. My fears are for my children and my mother and how they will cope.

"People say to me “oh Jayne you are so brave” but I’m not. I don’t have any choice but to cope.

"Everything happens for a purpose. In October I celebrated my 50th – a birthday I was told I would never see. Instead of gifts I asked for donations for Cotswold Care Hospice.

"I want to raise the profile of the charity so more people can receive the support and help that I have. There is nothing wrong with asking for help – and it can make all the difference.

"If something good comes out of what I have been through it will make it all worthwhile."