A woman who has spent the majority of her life lying down spent four-and-a-half weeks in intensive care following the first part of a potentially life-saving operation.
Melanie Hartshorn suffers from a genetic condition called Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome (EDS) which causes her skull to dislocate from her neck and spine. The 33-year-old, who lives in Cramlington, Northumberland, struggles to sit up and spends most of her time confined to her bed.
Since May last year, she has been kept alive by a surgical halo vest. Melanie said the halo was only a short term solution and she needed to raise £100,000 for an operation to fuse her neck to her spine.
