Mum-of-two suddenly paralysed from waist down while sitting in her morning bath
A mum-of-two found herself suddenly paralysed from the waist down when taking a bath, leaving her "completely helpless".
Jessica Ennis, 30, had told her children she would take them to nursery just minutes before she found herself unable to move from below the waist on June 21. The mum had been suffering from pain all over her body from as early as August 2022 and initially had no idea what happened to her when she was hit with another wave of discomfort. Aesthetics worker Jessica has since been confined to a bed at Ystrad Mynach Hospital after she was hauled from the bath by her mother.
A mum-of-two was left paralysed and bed-ridden after a sudden medical diagnosis (Jessica Ennis / Media Wales)Her trip to the hospital found Jessica diagnosed with functional neurological disorder (FND), a sudden condition which causes serious arm and leg weakness as well as seizures. The mum-of-two feels as though her "life had been taken away" following the diagnosis, now suffering two seizures a day. She is also struggling to control her own limbs and is confined to a wheelchair, with doctors saying she could be dependent on a wheelchair for the rest of her life, WalesOnline reported.
Jessica said: "I felt completely numb when they told me – like my life had been taken away. I just want to be a mum again, I want to be a wife again, and I want to be Jess again. We’d all lived a very happy and active life before this happened to me. I considered myself the luckiest woman in world. I had recently married my best friend and my soulmate, and between us we had my step son Caylan, 11, and our daughters Cassidy, who's three, and Savannah, who's two.
"Life couldn't have been more perfect. I run the local kids’ and men’s football teams in Gelligaer, I’d ran a half marathon, we travelled often in our motorhome, we were always out doing stuff as a family, and even looked after my three nieces often. Then all of a sudden last August I began to feel unwell with an unexplainable pain which was really debilitating. Then in the November overnight I’d gone blind in my left eye which the doctors diagnosed as optic neuritis.
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A fundraiser has been started for Jessica Ennis' recovery (Jessica Ennis / Media Wales)"I began to adapt to life with that but then my skin also began almost burning in a horrific pain. I began to have splitting migraines, my limbs began to feel very heavy – almost too heavy to move – and most days I could barely stay awake. I had various tests but nothing showed up. I was then told I had fybromyalgia and life continued like this for another six months."
She has since recalled the last time she saw home, the day of her sudden paralysis. A build-up of fatigue led to the incident which left Jessica in her bath and unable to move. By Tuesday she was experiencing "unbearable" pain and was "up all night". Jessica recalled the Wednesday morning of the incident, saying: "At 10 past seven I got in the bath and by 20 past I was paralysed from the waist down. I couldn’t move my legs at all. It was terrifying. I called my mum who came around and dragged me out the bath before an ambulance got to us. That was the last time I saw my own home.
"I was taken straight to hospital and then a week later I got the diagnosis. My life has completely changed in a way I could never have imagined before all this. I’ve been in hospital ever since and I’ve not had any feeling in my legs since. The doctors have got no idea what the future holds for me because it’s a rare condition and different for every patient. Despite my diagnosis the symptoms have worsened. I'm now having multiple seizures a day where it feels like lightning bolts are running through my body. My throat closes and I can't breathe while I'm having them. The pain I feel during the seizures leaves me exhausted.
Jessica was hauled out of the bath by her mum after losing feeling below the waist (Jessica Ennis / Media Wales)"I’m also stuttering and struggling to get my words out and have involuntary spasms in my right arm. I can no longer feed myself because I can’t use my hands without them shaking uncontrollably. I can’t help my children with anything. I’m incontinent at 30 years old. It’s a horrible condition and not something I’d ever thought would have happened to me. The worst part is the hyper-sensitivity meaning I can't bear being touched and all I want to do is hug my husband and my children."
A fundraiser has since been started for the mum-of-two, raising £1,590 of its £50,000 target so far. Donations are headed up by a Three Peaks challenge in support of Jessica, with pals Charlotte Denham and Paula Williams set to climb the three mountains in three days to help with the financial burden the family now face.
They wrote on the GoFundMe page: "She is unable to return home to be with her family as their home will need to undergo modifications, which of course costs money, money that they don’t have. We want to help alleviate the financial burden so that when Jess is well enough to leave hospital, everything is in place ready for Jess to go home to her family, this is likely to be a number of months yet."
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