Help Emma get treatment to get her life back.
I aim to raise funds for my beautiful 21-year-old daughter Emma to return her to the lovely, caring, fit and well young woman that she was.
Below is a picture of Emma when she was fairly well:
Three years ago, life was good, and life was normal;then, totally out of the blue, Emma developed bilateral Kidney stones and ended up with Pyelonephritis (inflammation / infected kidney).
After a week in hospital, having had surgery and massive doses of antibiotics, she lost all her health. The antibiotic treatment killed all her natural gut bacteria which paralysed her gastrointestinal system.
Emma has been unable to keep little food down from this time because her stomach and small bowel have not worked. This Hypomotility of her gastric systemresulted in dangerous weight loss to a level of 35 kgs with a BMI of 13. The outcome was dangerously low levels of Potassium in her blood and moderate Renal Failure, of which she has required emergency admissions to hospital.
Below is a picture of Emma a couple of months before admission. She was only 38kg here.
From 2020 to April 2021, Emma has had six admissions to Leeds Teaching Hospital. She has had unsuccessful Nasogastric and Nasojejunum tube feeding and finally a traumatic Jejunostomy (a tube through the abdominal wall, direct into the small bowel). The last hospitalisation being over 14 weeks.
TRIGGER WARNING ⚠️
photos below of Emma’s most recent hospital admission:
Emma even spent her 21st birthday in hospital!
Emma has lost the best three years of her life, when all her friends are enjoying socialising, having relationships, having the university experience and doing all the things that 18–21-year-olds do! Her illness has lost her friends, and socially isolated her from her peer groups as she is unable to get dressed up, go out to restaurants and bars or even just simply go shopping.
Unfortunately, the medical care she needs now is not available on the NHS, so we need your help to raise funds for private treatment, specialist Functional Medicine, investigations, the correct diagnosis and treatment. This would include a gastric pacemaker which is not available on the NHS. This surgery would drastically improve Emma’s quality of life and allow her to live a relatively normal long life.
We discovered one of the top Gastro Consultants in the country, Dr R Shidrawi, who we first saw on The Diagnosis Detectives - BBC 2 September 2020. He provides private medicine and believes Emma has been misdiagnosed and he would be able to get Emma onto the road to recovery.
Please help us to raise the medical fees, it doesn’t matter how little you can give, every penny moves Emma towards recovery and back to a normal life. Thank you so much!
