After a childhood spent battling rare condition, fencer Anna Burnett sets her sights on medal success at Commonwealth Games

The red-head fencer from Ratho is representing the country in the Women's Foil at the international sporting event, but there was a time when even getting out the house to play with her friends was an ordeal.

Anna was diagnosed with Crigler-Najjar Syndrome just after she was born - a rare condition causing jaundice, which also left her without a vital enzyme in the liver for breaking down a waste substance known as bilirubin. If left to build up, it could have caused irreversible brain damage.

It meant that for years she spent hours under a special blue light which helped breakdown the bilirubin and processed her blood properly.

Despite that - and a partial liver transplant at the age of nine - Anna went on to become the most successful Scottish transplant athlete of all time, collecting a haul of gold medals in sprint and swimming events. And now she has made the leap into mainstream international competition.

Today, she will board the plane to Melbourne for the Commonwealth Fencing Open Championships, a competition which is held separately but at the same time as the Commonwealth Games, as fencing is no longer included in the Games.

"It's amazing to have been chosen to represent Scotland," she says. "It feels like such an achievement being able to represent my country in a mainstream international event, and not as a transplant athlete. I can't wait to get going."

You feel that has been the 25-year-old's mantra for life. "I spent so long having to be in the house, under the lights, that when I was well enough to do sport properly, I just wanted to give it my all," she says.

"As I got bigger I had to spend more and more time under the lights, because I obviously had more body mass, so it was from 7pm to 7am, and then I would have to come home from school at lunchtime. It was quite restrictive and any time I had outside was really special."

She adds: "Initially there were only full liver transplant operations being done in London and my parents didn't really want to put me through that. But when I was about eight, things were more difficult. I was getting increasingly frustrated about not being able to go out. So when they heard there was now a partial operation, a graft, it was agreed I should have one, so I went on the waiting list. I waited six months and just before my tenth birthday I had the operation.

"I know my liver came from a little boy, but that's all. When it was the tenth anniversary, I wrote to the hospital asking if I could send flowers to his parents and they passed a letter on. It was a strange, emotional time. I am still on anti-rejection medication and always will be. But that's a small price to pay."

Almost immediately Anna knew she wanted to get involved in sport.

"I used to go for swimming lessons, but that was about it. I was desperate to make up for lost time. My surgeon was involved with the Junior Transplant Games and I wanted to do that the same year as the operation, but my mum convinced me to wait a year."

However, as soon as she started to compete there was no stopping her. "It's hard to say whether I would be so competitive if I hadn't had my liver problem. All I know is that when I was well I felt so bored sitting on the sofa. I had so much time on my hands I needed to do something with it."

She created quite a stir when, aged 11, at her first Transplant Games she won every event she entered, scooping the Best Newcomer Award as well.

"It just fired me up to do more. I was in every Games after that, and sometimes I would win five golds from sprinting and swimming. I think I have about 60 or so medals.

"When I was 18 I moved up to the adult games and concentrated on running. The 200m was my main event and at my first World Transplant Games I won gold. Two years ago at the European Games in Germany I won the 200m and 400m and the World Record for 400m. It was fantastic."

By that time the former Balerno High pupil had been training at Meadowbank with coach Gary Wilson.

"I didn't tell him at first about my transplant - I didn't want special treatment. But eventually questions were being asked about why I wasn't progressing fast enough. It would take me much longer to recover as my liver takes longer to process lactic acid and so I told him. He was brilliant about it and changed my training to suit me better.

"I won a scholarship to study sport at Loughborough University, but I only did a year because I felt the training didn't suit me. While I love competing in sport, I didn't really want to study it. All the time I'd spent under blue lights, I had been drawing and painting, so I built up my portfolio and went to Edinburgh College of Art to do fashion design.

"Now I run my own dress-making business. It funds my fencing - although I've had a lot of financial support from family and friends which I'm so grateful for, as you get no sponsorship or money to go to the Commonwealth Games."

Despite her success on the track, Anna decided she wanted a change. "In a way I felt I'd taken it as far as I could. I had done some fencing at school and loved it, so when I was at university I joined the club. The coach there, Brandon Lim, said to me I could be in the Commonwealth squad, and I thought he was joking. He was serious, though."

The running and fencing went in tandem for a while, but the last two years have seen Anna focus on the latter. "I now train in London at least three days a week. I have broken into the top 50 and won silver in the Highland Open last year and I was third in the Scottish Fencing Open in January. I don't know what to expect in Melbourne, but you have to go aiming for the top."

She adds: "The Transplant Games are competitive, but there are also people there doing it just because they can. Mainstream events, though, well, there everyone is competing to win. When I say I've had a transplant, I think it opens people's minds. It would be amazing to represent Scotland in Glasgow at the next games."

Of course, her health is still a priority. She watches what she eats as she no longer has her gall bladder, so fatty foods are difficult to digest. And she has never touched alcohol. "I decided that early on," she says." Why would I put any more pressure on my liver? I'm just so happy to be here I wouldn't jeopardise that."