A woman woke up paralysed after she claims doctors told her to ‘stop being dramatic’.
At the age of 14, Grace Turnball thought she just had a stomach bug ‘but it just kept getting worse’ in December 2016.
And unfortunately, it led to a diagnosis that ‘turned her life upside down’. Described as fit and healthy as a teen, she loved to play football, but she was later told that she couldn’t kick a ball again.
After her throwing up got worse, the teen from South Shields, Tyne and Wear, went to the hospital.
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“And they said, ‘We think you’re okay, it’s just viral,” Grace recalled. “I accepted it because it’s only been four days.”
However, she began feeling dizzier and unstable on her feet and was throwing everything back up.
Yet when she went back to see the doctors, she says they told her ‘it’s still viral, there’s loads of bugs going around’.
“I was really unwell with a really high temperature, and I was white as a ghost, but they told me to go home and stop being dramatic,” she claimed. “It felt like I was stupid, but I knew my body wasn't right.”
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And then overnight, it ‘changed her life’ as she woke up feeling sick and needing to go to the bathroom but found she ‘couldn’t move from the neck down’.
“I didn't know what was going wrong, but I thought maybe it was sleep paralysis,” Grace added.
She was then rushed to the hospital, where doctors revealed she had an infection of the nervous system, spinal cord and brain.
"It turned my life upside down. I was devastated [to be told I'd never walk again]. I went ‘can I still kick a football?’ I was a really good footballer, and football was my life so it was heartbreaking,” Grace recalled.
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"I couldn't even say a word. It was like a really bad stutter to the point I couldn't get a word out. I used to use an app on my phone at school to try to talk.”
Now 22 years old, she spent three years unable to speak and suffered up to 50 seizures a day. While doctors still don’t seem to know exactly what happened to her, Grace is permanently paralysed from the ribs down and has had a catheter fitted, but receives regular physiotherapy.
She believes it could have been prevented if the seriousness of the infection had been spotted sooner.
"I couldn't eat properly for a long time and was on a feeding tube. I only had 10 minutes of a normal day in between the seizures for three years after that,” Grace continued.
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"My house wasn't adapted, so I had to live in the living room for eight years. Being an adult and not having my own privacy, that was tough.
"I've been told if they'd caught it sooner, I may still have been paralysed but I may not have been as bad as I was."
Now working as an emergency services call handler, she wants people to trust their instincts when they know something is wrong with their body.
"You know your body best so don't let someone dismiss you just because they think they're more knowledgeable,” she said.
But Grace added that she’s decided there’s ‘no point dwelling on it’ and has since embraced wheelchair sports.
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“Just because I push around on wheels I'm just as capable as everyone else is,” she said. "Even though my life is a lot different and it is tougher than maybe an able-bodied person, it's still a really good life."
Topics: Health
Jess Battison