I’ve spent most of my life on my back due to rare condition – I need to raise £60k in two weeks for urgent op
A DISABLED woman who has spent most of her life on her back due to a rare condition is trying to raise £60,000 for an urgent operation.
Melanie Hartshorn has two weeks left to get the cash so she can have a potentially life-altering surgery.
The 32-year-old has Ehlers-Danlos syndrome, which causes her skull to dislocate from her neck and spine.
The condition means Melanie has to wear a halo all the time to keep her in a fixed position and stops constant seizures.
She has been wearing the halo 24/7 since May 2021, when four screws in her vertebrae snapped four years after her last operation.
Melanie now needs a major operation to fuse her neck to her spine - and has a surgery booked for next month in Spain.
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But after having set a target of £100,000, Melanie still has £60k to raise in only two weeks.
She told the Mirror: "I’m in a lot of pain. The operation will give me a last chance at having a life.
"Without funds for specialist surgery, I will die. I stop breathing without the halo.
“I can’t keep living in this halo but at the moment, I can’t live without it. I will die without surgery. This is my last chance at life."
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Melanie, from Cramlington, Northumberland, is looked after by her mum and a carer.
She dreams of becoming a teacher and in 2016 finished her degree in biology at Newcastle University - but attended her graduation ceremony on a stretcher due to her condition.
She had a string of surgeries in Spain to fuse her neck and spine together in 2017, but her condition worsened when the screws in her spine snapped.
The old screws cannot be removed and surgeons must access her neck through the throat.
I will die without surgery. This is my last chance at life
Melanie Hartshorn
Melanie says that the pain is "unbearable" and can something like coughing loosens her spine.
She admitted that missing the operation was a real possibility with the graduate still needing funds.
While the operation wouldn't cure the condition, it would fuse her neck back into place and allow her to live life from a wheelchair.
Donations to Melanie's surgery can be made here.
