A WOMAN has been left permanently paralysed after her legs went numb while she stayed up late watching TV.
Emily Overton, 23, had been sitting on the sofa with her boyfriend watching WWE when she realised she couldn't get up.
The wrestling fan, from Ulceby, near Grimbsy, Lincs, then wet herself after losing control of the lower half of her body in July last year.
Boyfriend Josh Reed-Osbourne, also 23, kept her calm and he dialled 111 before she was rushed to hospital.
When she got there, doctors diagnosed her with spinal arteriovenous malformations (AVM) – a rare disorder caused by a tangle of blood vessels on or near the spine.
Emily will now be in a wheelchair for life after the freak incident.
'My legs went numb'
She said: “Me and my boyfriend are really big fans of WWE so we stayed up late to watch it specially.
“It was about 3:30am when I decided to go to bed.
"I’d had my legs up on the chair in front of me and they felt a bit numb.
“It was when I tried to get up that I realised I couldn’t move them at all. I burst into tears, I was hysterical.
“Luckily, my boyfriend stayed really calm and told me it would all be okay as we dialled emergency services.”
Emily was taken to Hull Royal Infirmary and then transferred to Pinderfields hospital where she was diagnosed with her rare condition.
What really breaks my heart is that I’ll never be able to walk down the aisle
The former carer enjoyed a relatively healthy childhood but by the time she reached 12, she started to struggle slightly with her walking as she often felt sharp pains in her knees.
She would regularly have physiotherapy to cope with the pains which she said would come in nasty bouts then all but disappear.
Emily said her knees had slowly been getting worse in the weeks prior to that evening in July 2018 when it happened.
But she said the issue was never properly diagnosed.
Emily and Josh have been together for six years after meeting on a bus to their sixth form college.
“What really breaks my heart is that I’ll never be able to walk down the aisle,” she said.
“Josh has been really supportive but it’s been difficult.
“As soon as doctors told me I was paralysed, I broke down. It wasn’t good. I couldn’t really believe it.
“I have good days and bad days now though I try my best to remain positive.
“I just think that most people see somebody who’s paralysed and focus on the fact they can’t walk again.
“But it’s more than that, I can take the not walking, I can accept that – it’s the fact I can’t even go to the toilet by myself.
A TICKING TIMEBOMB
NORMALLY, in a healthy brain there is a fine network of capillaries running between arteries and veins.
But an arteriovenous malformation or AVM is a complex tangle of arteries and veins that develops when the capillaries are missing in one part of the brain.
AVMs can range in size from just a few millimetres to several centimetres across.
They can grow in any part of the brain or spinal cord.
Due to the fact an AVM is made up of blood vessels, they are at risk of rupturing.
When they rupture and bleed they cause an haemorrhagic stroke, or bleed on the brain.
As a result they are often referred to as a "ticking timebomb".
“I was a really, really independent person beforehand and now I’ve totally lost that – Josh has to do nearly everything for me now.
“I can’t cook, I can’t wash up, I can’t even make a cup of tea – because the nature of my condition makes me so sensitive to heat.”
Emily now has aspirations to compete in the 2024 Paralympic Games, having discovered a talent for shooting.
And doctors have even told her there is hope she can still conceive her own biological child – though her chances of carrying a baby full-term are low.
AVM affects less than two in every 100,000 people.
Nine out of ten sufferers are born with the condition – though symptoms may not be apparent until later life.
Next month, Emily will participate in a charity walk in aid of The Butterfly AVM Charity later this month.
Donations can be made via her Facebook.
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