A Fife woman suffering from a debilitating condition hopes to receive life-changing treatment in America.
Amy-Louise McKenzie weighed just 2lb 11oz when she was born nine weeks early and effectively “died” twice in theatre as surgeons battled to remove parts of her bowels that had rotted away.
She has suffered health issues all her life as a result but against the odds, is now 25 and has gone on to have a young son, Liam, aged four.
Amy was diagnosed with necrotising enterocolitis, a serious illness in which tissues in the gut become inflamed and start to die, and is facing the prospect of being on medication for the rest of her life.
However, after being given the heartbreaking news by doctors there is nothing more they can do to ease her condition further, her only hope of a better life is a prosthetic bowel being fitted by surgeons on the other side of the Atlantic.
Recent injections to ease the problem have only exacerbated things, damaging her liver and her pancreas in the process.
She said: “America is looking like the last hope. I’m in constant agony.“On a daily basis I’m having to be on the toilet constantly, I feel sick, I feel dizzy and I just feel generally ill all the time.
“You can’t really plan to go out anywhere because of it. It’s not a life for anyone.
“My partner John Savage and Liam help me on a daily basis, but it’s hard for Liam seeing me ill like that, and sometimes he has to get me my cream and rubs my tummy.
“I might smile on the outside but it’s my inside that hurts and the pain inside is unbearable.”
Amy spent almost two years in Dundee’s Ninewells Hospital as a child and also underwent an ileostomy, in which the small bowel is diverted through an opening in the abdomen, which had to be reversed when she was two.
Amy’s mother Karen Molyneux has now set up a fundraising page to make the American dream a reality and she revealed how hard things have been from the outset.
She explained: “My baby never got a cuddle from her mammy until she was 42 days old – a cuddle she desperately needed! Amy died twice in theatre and I thank God everyday she’s here.
“She spent one-and-a-half years in Ninewells and was in an incubator for five months. I could only touch her through these holes that were bigger than Amy, as the stoma bag would not stick to her tiny body, and she was wearing dolls clothes which I still have.
“I’m so proud and grateful Amy is here but it’s heartbreaking to watch my baby suffer 24/7. We just want to give her the life she deserves.”
Anyone wishing to support the ‘Hope for Amy’ fundraising drive can do so here.
