On 1 October, Lillie Thorne had spent the day cleaning her newly renovated first home while having a day off work.
She’d gone to bed totally as normal, but when she woke up the next day, she found her half of her face ‘paralysed’.
The 22-year-old is currently still too ill to speak but her auntie Ashleigh Thorne said that what’s so ‘heartbreaking’ is that this has been ‘completely random’.
“It came out of nowhere,” Ashleigh explained. “She was fit and healthy before.”
Waking up to the shock change in her face, Lillie visited A&E where she was diagnosed with Bell’s palsy. This is a temporary weakness or lack of movement that typically affects one side of the face.
Receiving the typical prescription of steroids and being told it could take six months before going back to normal, the young woman from Barrow-in-Furness was sent home.
Lillie’s family say she was ‘fit and healthy’ before. (SWNS)
However, Lilli ended up returning to hospital the next day after she began slurring her words.
A CT scan was carried out but doctors found no sign she had suffered a stroke.
It was then thought she might have developed Ramsey Hunt disease and she was given antiviral medication to treat it.
But Ashleigh said Lillie’s condition kept ‘getting worse’ and she was later admitted to the hospital. By 7 October, she had lost her ability to speak and walk and began to suffer up to 30 seizures a day.
Numerous investigations and assessments were carried out by doctors before she was diagnosed with Functional Neurological Disorder (FND).
This is often described as a problem with how the brain receives and sends information to the rest of the body.
“Doctors don’t know what caused it, making it all a big mystery,” Ashleigh said, as it’s said it might be a ‘stress side effect’.
“But to see her as a shell of her normal self has been heartbreaking for everyone.
Lillie’s family are raising money to help get her mobility and independence. (SWNS)
“She is staying very positive and has a great sense of humour which is helping her get through it.”
Lillie was discharged on 22 October and has since regained her ability to speak but still slurs her words and stutters as well as suffering from seizures and being unable to walk.
Currently, she is living with her grandparents in their bungalow and has been referred for physio to help regain her mobility and independence.
Lillie’s family have launched a GoFundMe to help pay for specialist treatment in Leeds as they say she doesn’t meet the threshold for the specialist NHS service in Liverpool.
“I think I speak for the whole family and Lillie’s close friends when we say it’s been hard to see Lillie go from a normal 22-year-old to being unable to walk and suffering from multiple seizures a day,” Ashleigh said.
“I don’t think a lot of people know what FND really is, and more awareness is needed of this horrendous disorder. “Treatment for FND focuses on retraining the brain and nervous system using a team of specialists to help sufferers regain control of their movements.
“Unfortunately, there are no specialist centres that are funded by our ICB, so this is where most of the funds will be going.”
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