I spent 12 years IN BED

When Shelley Cowan was struck down by a mystery illness, it robbed her of a decade of her life

- VERONIQUE HAWKSWORTH, JADE BEECROFT

Completing a marathon on a treadmill would be an amazing achievement for most people, but when I took on the challenge, I defied all the odds. Taking careful steps on an anti-gravity treadmill in March 2022, it was hard to believe that a few short years earlier I couldn't walk, feed myself or even sit up in bed.

Things hadn't always been that way. At 15 years old in 1998, I went home from school one day with a sore throat and banging headache. Completely exhausted and in constant pain, I holed up in bed.

But with every day that passed, I seemed to be getting worse.

From weighing 14st, I rapidly began to lose weight. Rather than investigating the cause, doctors congratulated me. But my mum Ivy, then 45, a nurse, knew something was seriously wrong.

Weeks blurred into months. I stopped going to school and eventually became so weak that my dad Fred, then 46, had to carry me up the stairs. Countless trips to the doctors followed, but they were all stumped.

Fraught with worry, my parents had me hospitalized, where I stayed for the next 10 and a half months.

I was eventually diagnosed with severe myalgic encephalomyelitis, known as ME or chronic fatigue syndrome.

Caring roles

With no assurance of recovery, my parents decided to take me back home. My mum retired to become my full-time carer, and my dad and brother David, then 12, took on caring roles too, along with regular visits from a team of local women, trained by my mum as carers. While I was still in hospital, Dad, a builder, adapted our small home with a downstairs extension to fit my hospital bed and specialized equipment.