‘Meningitis left me paralysed – but I still enjoy beautiful clothes'

Ten years ago Faduma Farah, 45, was left paralysed from the neck down. Now she is inspiring other wheelchair users to live life to the full

- LEBBY EYRES

The first meningitis symptom I got was a bad headache that wouldn’t go away, so I went to Charing Cross Hospital one summer evening in August 2011, worrying that I might have a brain tumour.

The doctor reassured me that it was just a normal headache and gave me medication. But the following day, it was even worse. I had a high temperature and started to get a stiff neck. This time, I went to the Chelsea and Westminster Hospital. Arriving at the hospital is really the last memory I have for several weeks, though, as I fell into a coma.

Occasionally, I had the sensation of being in a dream and shadowy people trying to talk to me. But mainly it was darkness. I have since learned that the meningitis had very nearly killed me.

In mid-December 2011, I finally awoke to discover that I was paralysed from the neck down, as the illness had damaged my spinal cord. Until then, I had been a busy mum of two, happily married to my husband Osman, 47, and volunteering at a charity. Now I was facing the rest of my life in a powerchair, reliant on other people to help me get around, feed me and dress me.

When the doctors told me I’d never even lift a finger again, I had a choice: whether to make it, or to break it. And I decided to make it. If I’d broken and started blaming others for what had happened to me, then I would have lost myself completely. What kind of life would my children have if I was like that?

Instead, I had to be brave for them, for my husband and for myself. I felt that, having survived, I’d been given a second chance. I decided to embrace life with both hands, live it to the fullest and not to take anything for granted any more.

SETTING GOALS