Help Our 46-Year-Old Wife and Mum Break Free From a Three-Year Cycle of Infection

At just 46 years old, my wife Katie should be enjoying life, making plans and looking forward to the years ahead.

Instead, for the past three years, our lives have been dominated by severe, recurrent and increasingly difficult-to-treat bacterial infections.

Katie's health journey began long before this. She suffered for years with debilitating bladder dysfunction caused by Fowler's Syndrome, a rare and extremely painful condition that severely affected her quality of life.

In 2023, after years of suffering, Katie underwent a bladder cystectomy and formation of an ileal conduit urostomy, in the hope that this would finally give her some relief and allow her to move forward with her life.

Sadly, that hasn't happened.

Three years of recurring infections

Since her surgery, Katie has endured recurring, complex bacterial infections associated with her ileal conduit urostomy.

These infections have become increasingly difficult to treat, with multi-resistant bacteria leaving fewer and fewer conventional treatment options available.

For approximately three years, Katie has been caught in an exhausting cycle of infection, treatment, temporary improvement and then relapse.

On average, she is hospitalised every 3–4 weeks, often for lengthy periods. Some admissions have lasted weeks or even months.

Imagine living with the constant uncertainty of not knowing when the next infection will strike, knowing that another hospital admission could be just around the corner.

The physical toll has been enormous. But the emotional toll is just as devastating — the fear, exhaustion, disruption to everyday life and the constant worry about what the future holds.

We have reached a point where we need another option

The conventional treatments available through the NHS have unfortunately failed to provide Katie with a lasting solution.

Repeated antibiotic treatment is becoming increasingly difficult because of the resistant and complex nature of the bacteria involved.

We have therefore been exploring specialist privately funded treatment, including faecal microbiota transplantation (FMT), with the hope that restoring a healthier balance of bacteria may help reduce the recurrence and severity of Katie's infections.

We know that FMT is not a guaranteed cure, and we don't want to make promises that medicine cannot make.

But after three years of recurring infections and repeated hospitalisation, we desperately want to give Katie the opportunity to explore a specialist treatment option that may help where conventional approaches have not.

We are asking for £8,000

We are trying to raise £8,000 to help fund Katie's specialist treatment and associated medical care.

£8,000 may seem like a large amount of money, but to us it represents something much more important:

Hope.

Hope that Katie might be able to spend more time at home rather than in hospital.

Hope that she might be able to break the relentless cycle of infection and antibiotics.

Hope that she can start living her life again rather than simply managing from one hospital admission to the next.

Katie is only 46. She has already lost so much time to this illness. We don't want to sit back and accept that this is how the rest of her life has to be.

Please help us give Katie a chance

If you can donate, no matter how small the amount, we will be incredibly grateful.

£5, £10 or £20 might seem insignificant, but when many people come together, those small donations can make an enormous difference.

And if you aren't able to donate, sharing Katie's story is just as valuable. You never know who might see this, understand what she is going through, or know someone who can help.

We are not asking for a miracle.

We are simply asking for the chance to try something different.

After three years of recurring infections, countless hospital stays and a treatment journey that has left Katie exhausted, we want to give this remarkable woman the opportunity to reclaim some of her life.

Thank you from the bottom of our hearts for reading Katie's story, for donating if you can, and for sharing it if you can't.

With love,

Lee & Katie ❤️