THE NOTE THAT SAVED MY LIFE

When Rachel Gotto, 53, came off prescription pills, the consequences were dire

- VERONIQUE HAWKSWORTH, KIM WILLIS

Feeling my shoulders being shaken I slowly opened my tear-filled eyes, and saw my daughter hovering over me, a look of horror on her face. Then I realized I was lying on our kitchen floor. 'Mum!' Nicola, then six, cried.

It was July 2005, and I'd unexpectedly had a seizure. 'Call Grandma,' I whispered, and she ran off to grab the phone. Before I knew it, I was being rushed to Cork University Hospital.

As I sat in my hospital bed, a doctor told me I had a huge mass growing on the right side of my brain, affecting the left side of my body. I'd noticed a few months earlier my left arm and leg wouldn't move voluntarily sometimes, and I would momentarily lose control of my hand, but I assumed it was from the stress and grief I had endured.

HORRORS IN STORE

Seven years earlier, I was six months pregnant with Nicola when her dad - my husband Nic had died in a scuba-diving accident. After all I'd been through, I could never imagine what horrors life had in store for me next. 'I'm afraid to say it's inoperable,' the doctor said. I could take medication to keep the seizures at bay, but I'd likely have a catastrophic brain haemorrhage within two years. It was terrifying. Nicola had already lost her dad, she couldn't possibly lose her mum too.

But a couple of months later, a neurosurgeon in Bristol offer me hope when he agreed to attempt brain surgery. After the 15-hour operation to remove the mass on 6 January 2006, I spent months in physio to regain function in my left arm and leg.

However, one day that summer, I had another seizure, followed by another straight after. Soon, I was having up to 12 seizures a day. 'Does this mean it hasn't worked?' I cried to the doctor.