Support Abi's Fight
Donation protected
My daughter Abi is a beautiful 24 year old woman who lives in Glasgow, Scotland with me, her dad, 2 brothers Greg and Stephen, and our little cocker spaniel puppy Noah. For the last 5 years her life has been a daily battle with constant debilitating abdominal pain and chronic fatigue. She spends her days at home in bed as the pain is worse when she moves and is slightly more bearable when lying down with a heat pad or hot water bottle. She rarely manages to leave the house and when she does is usually in a wheelchair and I am with her for help and support.
Abi loves her family and her Church and has a passion for flying and anything to do with planes. She would love to be able to do normal things like study or work or even just go out with friends but at the moment these things just seem impossible.
Over the last 5 years Abi has had countless hospital admissions, loads of different tests and procedures and tried many different drugs and treatments. She has had 8 bowel surgeries including a colostomy, an ileostomy and reversal and a subtotal colectomy (removal of the large bowel) and been rushed to theatre 3 times for emergency surgery.
She is currently under consultants in several different areas including colorectal, gastroenterology, gynaecology, endocrinology and urology as well as a pain consultant and a pain psychologist. She has also been seeing a counsellor as this kind of long term illness inevitably affects your mood and your confidence.
Abi has been diagnosed with several autoimmune conditions including coeliac disease, Hashimoto thyroid disease and vitiligo. She has also been diagnosed with chronic slow transit constipation, bowel dysmotility and obstructive defecation syndrome, IBS and an overactive bladder.
In spite of all this she still seems no closer to getting the answer to how to fix what is going on and her condition has continued to deteriorate.
Abi has a particularly complex combination of conditions and symptoms which requires a multidisciplinary approach however in our experience this is not how things are done in the NHS. There seems to be little or no liaison between the different areas with each specialist looking at it from their own point of view. This is very frustrating as it is clear that these conditions are all connected and that the autoimmune involvement is underlying it all.
In this country under the NHS Abi’s best hope is pain management for the rest of her life. This is not a good prospect as already she is on a combination of very strong opioid pain killers and patches which do little more than take the edge off her pain.
We are not prepared to accept this for her future. She deserves the chance to live her life like other girls her age and we are determined to persevere until we find someone who can help her. It is becoming clear that in order to do this we are going to have to start looking at other options outwith the NHS both privately in the UK and potentially in the USA where this integrated approach is more the norm and there are different treatment options that are not available in this country.
We have already consulted with a Ms Granitsiosis at the Nuffield in Glasgow who was very confident that she could help and is arranging a couple of tests under general anaesthetic, 1 of which would not be available on the NHS as the only person in this area qualified to do it has now retired.
This could well be the answer we are looking for and we have to explore all the options but there will be a significant cost so we are starting this Go Fund Me page to give you an opportunity to help Abi see her life move forward and finally have her health and her future back. We appreciate the support and prayers that we have had from many of you throughout this journey and are now asking for financial support for the next step. Every little counts and we would be thankful for even a small donation to help with these medical expenses.
Abi loves her family and her Church and has a passion for flying and anything to do with planes. She would love to be able to do normal things like study or work or even just go out with friends but at the moment these things just seem impossible.
Over the last 5 years Abi has had countless hospital admissions, loads of different tests and procedures and tried many different drugs and treatments. She has had 8 bowel surgeries including a colostomy, an ileostomy and reversal and a subtotal colectomy (removal of the large bowel) and been rushed to theatre 3 times for emergency surgery.
She is currently under consultants in several different areas including colorectal, gastroenterology, gynaecology, endocrinology and urology as well as a pain consultant and a pain psychologist. She has also been seeing a counsellor as this kind of long term illness inevitably affects your mood and your confidence.
Abi has been diagnosed with several autoimmune conditions including coeliac disease, Hashimoto thyroid disease and vitiligo. She has also been diagnosed with chronic slow transit constipation, bowel dysmotility and obstructive defecation syndrome, IBS and an overactive bladder.
In spite of all this she still seems no closer to getting the answer to how to fix what is going on and her condition has continued to deteriorate.
Abi has a particularly complex combination of conditions and symptoms which requires a multidisciplinary approach however in our experience this is not how things are done in the NHS. There seems to be little or no liaison between the different areas with each specialist looking at it from their own point of view. This is very frustrating as it is clear that these conditions are all connected and that the autoimmune involvement is underlying it all.
In this country under the NHS Abi’s best hope is pain management for the rest of her life. This is not a good prospect as already she is on a combination of very strong opioid pain killers and patches which do little more than take the edge off her pain.
We are not prepared to accept this for her future. She deserves the chance to live her life like other girls her age and we are determined to persevere until we find someone who can help her. It is becoming clear that in order to do this we are going to have to start looking at other options outwith the NHS both privately in the UK and potentially in the USA where this integrated approach is more the norm and there are different treatment options that are not available in this country.
We have already consulted with a Ms Granitsiosis at the Nuffield in Glasgow who was very confident that she could help and is arranging a couple of tests under general anaesthetic, 1 of which would not be available on the NHS as the only person in this area qualified to do it has now retired.
This could well be the answer we are looking for and we have to explore all the options but there will be a significant cost so we are starting this Go Fund Me page to give you an opportunity to help Abi see her life move forward and finally have her health and her future back. We appreciate the support and prayers that we have had from many of you throughout this journey and are now asking for financial support for the next step. Every little counts and we would be thankful for even a small donation to help with these medical expenses.
Organizer
Lesley Lister
Organizer