"Life was good" for a healthy 21-year-old student Emma before she was left isolated and struck down with "out of the blue" illness.
Emma Tuck has lost the "best three years of her life" at Leeds Beckett University; while her friends were meeting up for lectures or going out to social events, Emma was left bed bound. In 2019, when she'd started university at age 18, the criminology student began to feel unwell and had kidney stones. This developed into a kidney infection and inflammation.
Emma, who is from Doncaster, has not been able to eat a full meal in more than three years, and is often left shaking and vomiting and feeling dizzy and incoherent. After three years of suffering, she needs a life-changing treatment costing over £40,000.
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The 21-year-old has to take eight different medications a day, which are crushed and put through her small intestine, and her loved ones "live in fear" of her getting another infection. Emma has spent the past three years in and out of hospital where sadly many treatments and surgeries she has undergone have been unsuccessful.
Emma said: "I can still eat and really do enjoy eating but unfortunately it comes back up and I end up vomiting around 20 times afterwards. I do miss my food."
Seven days after Emma's diagnosis in 2019, she underwent surgery. She was also given an antibiotic treatment which "killed all her natural bacteria and she was left with a paralysed gastrointestinal system," her mum said.
This left her stomach and small bowel unable to function properly, resulting in "dangerous" weight loss, low BMI, low blood sugar and potassium levels in her blood. In July, Emma and her family went on holiday but trying to go away is "chaos" for them; they have to take 16 litres of IV fluid in their hand luggage, as well as three litres in a suitcase.
Emma's mum Helen Tuck said their home has "become a pharmacy". Speaking about her daughter's struggle, she added: "Emma has lost the best three years of her life.
"Her illness has left her losing her friends, and socially isolated her from her peer groups. She is unable to get dressed up, go out to restaurants and bars or even just simply go shopping.
"Three years ago, life was good, and life was normal. Totally out of the blue, Emma developed bilateral Kidney stones and ended up with Pyelonephritis. She was having serious low blood sugar attacks and her risk of sepsis is high."
"Unfortunately, the medical care she needs now is not available on the NHS, so we need help to raise funds for private treatment, specialist medicine, investigations, the correct diagnosis and treatment", she added.
Speaking about a recent incident, Helen said she found her daughter passed out in her car. She said: "Following a weekend of being unwell, Emma decided she had enough. She got ready and went out to see her friend.
"Within two hours she called me as she felt so unwell and was too unwell to drive. I found her collapsed in her car, having a rigor with a extremely high temperature. So we drove her very quickly to Leeds hospital where she was admitted to A&E resuscitation room. Their knowledge of patients like Emma saved her life."
At the start of this month Emma began her masters degree, and has hopes of being able to work full time one day. She was able to go into the university for her first week but felt too unwell this week.
"It's going to be a long slog but she is too unwell to work so wants to study so that one day, she might be well enough to work and live a normal life."
Emma's family are fundraising for her to get a gastric pacemaker, which is unfortunately 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", Helen added.
She said: "In September we went to London for a joint private consultation with Dr Shidrawi and the surgeon. They were very positive about the gastric pacemaker. However, wanted Emma to go into hospital in London for 2 weeks, for unpleasant feeding tests, prior to doing the pacemaker.
"Unfortunately the cost for this alone was going to be around £30k. It seems like every time we go to an appointment the price goes up.
"Our current target is £40,000, however, a lot of this has been spent on private clinic appointments, gastric emptying study, CT with contrast scan, gastric Botox that failed, private medication. We now need a minimum of £35000 for the gastric pacemaker and pre surgery tests."
To donate to the Go Fund Me fundraiser for Emma click here.
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