I have wanted to do something like this for a while but have never really had the courage to. Too scared of failing, thinking I'm not strong enough, fit enough, the list goes on!

When I told my cousin Kerrie I was considering running for MS society, she could not have been more proud. She was diagnosed with MS at only 18 and it has dramatically changed her life forever. MS society is a great charity that is doing large amounts of research to try and find a cure for this horrible condition. This has given me the motivation and determination to raise as much as I can and do something completely out of my comfort zone, for Kerrie and the other 100,000 people in the UK with MS.

She has been brave and strong enough to relive and write her story for everyone to see. This will hopefully create more awareness and I am so proud of her for doing it. Please donate anything you can.

"My name is Kerrie Puddephatt and I have Relapse-Remitting Multiple Sclerosis. It all started in November 2012. 2012 had been one of the best years of my life when I turned 18 – I passed my driving test, had the perfect relationship, was awarded A*AA at college and had been accepted into all the universities I’d applied to. I was so excited to started my future at Newcastle University in September to study law and follow my dream of becoming a lawyer.

I got to my student halls in Newcastle and I adored it. I was living with some really great people and I couldn’t wait to see what Fresher’s Week was like. The weather was dreadful and I had a flu-type virus at the beginning of October but I didn’t care, I just wanted to enjoy myself. But in the end, I only lasted from Monday until Thursday because of the virus.

Given that everyone at university was getting Freshers flu, I didn’t really think twice about it at first. After a month though, I was getting frustrated. I’d been in an out of the doctors a few times and the A&E walk in centre at the RVI Hospital once, but they refused to prescribe antibiotics with it not being a bacterial infection. I pushed myself to go to lectures but missed out on socializing and spent most of my nights at my boyfriend’s halls with him looking after me. It took a family
friend coming to Newcastle to get me antibiotics and the virus started to go.

But that wasn’t the end of it. I started to experience other unusual symptoms halfway through October. The virus had left me coughing so much I was in A&E again and unable to walk. I’d noticed I was struggling with my balance and my eyesight was deteriorating a little too. I thought the eyesight deterioration was normal, as I’m already short sighted. All they could do was advise me to get some rest, and suggested that I could have Bells Palsy – an inner ear infection. It was only when I was walking to university one day and found that one side of my face had gone entirely numb that I started to panic. I went straight back to A&E, terrified that I was having a stroke. I was seen there briefly, asked some very basic questions and had some basic tests done before they said there was nothing wrong and let me go.

Things became progressively worse very rapidly after this. My moods had been affected when I had the virus, but started to become erratic and uncontrollable. My best friend came to Newcastle for Halloween, and I was extremely paranoid that everyone I lived with judged me and cried and snapped at my friend. I went back to my boyfriends before I
even made it out that night because I was so unwell. It was after this night that I remember very little.

I was at my boyfriend’s one night when I apparently lost control. I remember lying in his bed hardly able to move because I felt ill. What I’ve been told is that I screamed at him, told him I hated him and even threw my phone at him. It was at this point one of my sisters insisted on coming to Newcastle to bring me home. I remember lying in the back seat of the car driving back, but the rest is really a blur.

The only night I do remember is when I was sat on my bed, profusely vomiting into a bucket, at which point my family called me an ambulance. I’ve been told that in the ambulance I was in so much pain and was so scared that I ripped off my boyfriend’s shirt and hit a paramedic out of fear and my inability to understand what was happening. My family told me that when I arrived at A&E in Barnsley, my home, the nurses claimed my reactions were being put on and I was faking it. My family were furious and demanded that they take it seriously, so eventually they gave me a CT scan. They then told my family I had ‘shadows all over my brain.’ Although I can’t remember this experience, I know my 3 older sisters were incredible and spent most, if not the entire night with me then. The next day I was transferred to the Royal Hallamshire Hospital in Sheffield on 5 November.

Again, I remember very little of my experience here, and the memories I do have are distorted. I was given steroids immediately at the hospital, and was diagnosed with acute disseminated encephalomyelitis (ADEM), a brief but severe attack on the brain and spinal cord. At this point, I’d lost my eyesight completely, my ability to walk or speak and my memory of myself, other people and my life. The severity of this lasted for about 2 weeks before starting to improve. My family and friends were terrified and had no idea what my prognosis was. My best friend later told me that on her first visit during this time she heard my screaming as soon as she got out of the lift, even though the ward was some distance from there. I’ve been told that doctors considering moving me into intensive care, but one my sisters and a member of staff were adamant this would be more damaging on my recovery so I stayed in L ward. Doctors tried giving me immunoglobulin therapy, but I was so afraid and aggressive it was too dangerous to continue. As my family put it, I was preventing my own recovery.

After those couple of weeks, I started to remember myself and my family and this continued to gradually improve. My memories were still quite distorted – I remember having MRI scans in gyms and shopping centres and having infusions on trains. Some of these memories were truly terrifying. I have a memory of being on a train, and pulling out my cannula and bleeding to death. I pulled out my cannulas quite often when I was entirely blind I’ve been told, and I’ve been shown pictures of me covered in bruises and pretty much black and blue. My concept of time was distorted – I was constantly angry that my family hadn’t seen me for months when they’d visited the day before. My emotions were out of control. I remember trying to formulate plans to escape from the hospital, walking around wherever I could and then standing in front of the lifts staring at them. But I was always too frightened to leave.

By the time Christmas came around, my family were pushing for me to come home and I’d been making a steady recovery. This turned out to be the worst Christmas of my life – when I was released and went home, I couldn’t handle the transition. I was sick during the car journey home and had to get out of the car to vomit. My brain couldn’t handle the excessive stimulation and I found myself with severe headaches and crying quite often. On Christmas Day, I opened my presents but cried because I couldn’t see what they were, my eyesight was still in recovery. I used to cry when I looked in the mirror because I couldn’t see my face. My family had a party on New Year’s Eve and I spent most of that night upstairs crying.

After this, I was happy because I believed I’d finally been released from hospital and I could stay at home. I had to return to the hospital to arrange what happened next, and I mistakenly believed I’d been going home. I was told then and there that I was being transferred to Kendray Hospital’s Neurological Rehabilitation Unit in Barnsley and cried like I never have before. I’d been in hospital for 6 weeks and all I wanted was to go back to my normal life. I went to view the unit and eventually accepted it. When I was transferred there though I despised it more than being in the Hallamshire. Other patients were also coming to the realization they’d suffered a brain injury and I could hear them screaming and crying down the hallways – it was almost like a mental institution. I was also starting to realize what had happened to me and struggled with depression. I had thoughts of killing myself when they finally released me and even tried to think of ways to kill myself in rehab.

The days in rehab were long and I found myself with too much time to think. We were set menial tasks to improve our conditions and transition us back into real life I realize now, but at the time it was unbearable, frustrating and demeaning. By this time, I’d remembered in hospital my achievements in 2012 and that I’d been studying law at university, so my only motivation become fighting my way back there for September that same year. Eventually, they started letting me go home at weekends before finally discharging me on 15 February 2013. I was so unbelievably happy and felt ready to start recovering at home. I struggled a lot transitioning back to normal life after my discharge. I was scared to be around people and leave the house, and still had to hold on to people when I was walking sometimes. I was still adamant that I was going to go back to university regardless and spent the year
trying to reintegrate myself.

But then at the end of August I relapsed. I was at home when I started experiencing extreme dizziness and realized my eyes were moving rapidly from side to side. I started vomiting and was unable to stop and had to be carried downstairs and to the car. My boyfriend sat with me in the car having to hold a bucket for me to vomit whilst my dad drove me back to the Hallamshire."

Continued in pictures below....