An Elgin mum suffering from an agonising illness hopes to go abroad for lifesaving surgery – despite fears her condition has left her so weak that the operation could kill her.
Isla Evans, 31, says her body is “shutting down” as a result of a condition so rare that no doctor in the UK is able to operate on her.
Mrs Evans is now bedbound and worries she could only have months left to live unless she undergoes a pioneering operation in Germany to alleviate her symptoms.
She began to suffer from superior mesenteric artery syndrome (SMAS) – an illness that causes extreme pain after eating – as a 10-year-old, but was continually misdiagnosed as anorexic throughout her life.
It was only last December that she discovered the true extent of her illness, and since then her condition has worsened.
An obstruction to her intestine, caused by a major artery, means digesting food is an agonising process for Mrs Evans and it has now begun to compress her kidney as well.
The mum-of-two now hopes to raise £16,000 by July so she can have the operation that could turn her family’s life around.
Mrs Evans said: “The operation is quite a complicated procedure and I’ve become so weak and malnourished it’s possible I could die if it goes wrong.
“I could bleed out then and there, but I have no option.
“If I don’t have it done I worry that I’m going to end up dead within months, as the obstruction will just get worse.
“This would give me the chance at a normal life for the first time in 22 years.”
Mrs Evans has a seven-year-old son Dylan and three-year-old daughter Ellie, neither of whom have known their mother as anything other than an invalid.
“Because I can’t eat much I’m constantly tired and weak, some days I don’t eat anything at all because of the pain involved”, she said.
“I need help with everything, and we have never been able to go on holiday as a family or even taken the kids to Lossie beach.
“The surgery could totally turn my life around.”
Mrs Evans is pinning her hopes on a procedure devised by Professor Wilhelm Sandmann in Duisburg.
The operation will cut the major artery and re-route it away from her intestines and kidneys.
She hopes to travel to Germany in July. Donations can be made at www.gofundme.com/nahu68.