My Names Danielle Goodridge and i’m 15 years old. Originally from the Isle of Wight but I now live in Farnham. I live with my mum, dad and older brother Tom. I also have a big sister Emma-Leigh.

Up until the age of 14 I was never ill, it was always everyone else! But on 21st January 2011 I came down with a sickness bug, or so I though! I could not keep anything down. After a few days I went to the doctors and ended up in hospital, everyone thought I had a virus. But weeks passed, months, and now a year and I haven’t stopped vomiting. Everything I eat and everything I drink comes back up. As you can imagine i’ve lost a lot of weight.
I have had to deal with a lot of comments and teasing over my weight, people assuming I have an eating disorder. The doctors didn’t know what was going on, I had no diagnosis, I couldn't tell people what was wrong with me, no-one knew. No medication worked, no special diet, what was I supposed to do? Not eat?

Over the past year I have been in and out of hospitals constantly, all over the country. Frimley Park hospital, Aintree hospital and Great Ormand Street Childrens hospital. Backwards and forwards, no-one understood what was happening or why it was happening. I am badly dehydrated, malnourished and am loosing dangerous amounts of weight. In this time I have been given many different anti sickness medications and also had to undergo many investigations including CT, MRI, Endoscopies, Ultrasound Scans and the passing of NG & NJ Tubes.

I thought it was never going to stop. It still hasn’t but my mum one day came across an artical in the Daily Mail ‘My stomachs paralysed’ as I read through this article I thought ‘that’s me!’. We contacted the girl, Hannah Westworth and she was very helpful, she gave us the name of a doctor in Liverpool and we went and saw him. She has Gastroparesis (delayed emptying of the stomach), and so do I! My stomach has now become paralysed and I am not able to digest food or drink.

I had to be fed several times via NJ feeding tubes down into the lower bowel. The consultants explained that my chances of recovery were slim and options for treatment included only a permanent feeding tube. I didn’t want to be fed by tube forever.

But the girl from the article had a pacemaker, in her stomach. The pacemaker is implanted under the skin, with wires going down into the muscle walls of the stomach. I was told today, January 2011 that i have a diagnosis, and i can have a pacemaker fitted. I will never be able to thank her enough for telling other about her illness, if she hadn’t, I'd still be undiagnosed. Hopefully, when I start to eat gastric activity prompts the pacemaker to send a small electrical impulse to the muscles and the gut contracts helping the stomach to move the food along the gut.
But the procedure is not a cure it is only seen as possible management of my symptoms, but if it helps reduce sickness it could transform my life.

This is a very rare procedure and is not always funded by the NHS. Meaning that funding has to be applied for and then dates for surgery agreed. This can be a very long process.

Gastroparesis causes me to vomit continuously. This has resulted in me losing, my hair and an awful lot of weight, which is on going. I cannot digest any solid or liquid food, and my weight is continuing to drop.

The Pioneering surgery to fit me with a ‘bionic stomach’ is needed immediately, and therefore through my family and friends I am now trying to raise £23,000 for this operation, plus additional funds for aftercare and any future replacement devices.

Thank you for reading my story and any help you can give will be greatly appreciated. I would also like to say a big thank you to Hannah Westworth and her family for all the help they have given us an wish Hannah all the best with the pacemaker and future treatment. Without them we would still be undiagnosed.

Lots of Love

Dannie Goodridge and her Family

xxx

My Mum and I