Tanya-lee Holmes went to sleep with a sore neck and woke up paralysed on one side of her body – but the shock ordeal was preceded by weeks of ‘strange’ symptoms.
The mum went on to experience several traumatic months fraught with hospital visits, scans, and surgeries – to eventually end up an incomplete quadriplegic who can no longer walk unassisted.
Tanya-lee’s symptoms lead to two cervical spinal nerves spontaneously shattering and changing her life forever.
In May 2016, the then 39-year-old spent six weeks with unexplained neck pain her doctor believed was simply a kinked neck.
‘We treated it with painkillers, acupuncture, I changed my pillows – I tried absolutely everything,’ Tanya-lee, from Bathurst, New South Wales, told FEMAIL. ‘We did X-rays and CT scans and everything.
‘Then, suddenly, I started feeling pins and needles in my left hand.’
The mum went back to her doctor and got an MRI done – but the test came up clean once again, with no discernible damage to her cervical spine.
‘We assumed it was a pinched nerve but there isn’t much you can do with that. Just rest, use heat packs, and give it time to settle.’
Tanya-lee Holmes went to sleep with a sore neck and woke up paralysed on one side of her body – but the ‘shock’ event was preceded by weeks of ‘strange’ unexplainable symptoms
Three days later, Tanya-lee woke up and felt a jolt of pain go down her body.
‘I stood up and it was like someone plugged me into a powerpoint,’ she recalled. ‘I got an electric shock up my spine and automatically started vomiting.’
Despite her condition, Tanya-lee still had to take her children to school and perform her duties as a parent.
‘We lived out of town so I had to drive my 17-year-old son 15 minutes to the bus stop. I had to drive across town with a bucket between my legs because I was still vomiting the whole time.’
Tanya-lee went on to experience several traumatic months fraught with hospital visits, scans, and surgeries
Tanya-lee’s younger son was only nine and went to school down the road, so by the time she got back home from dropping him off she had a ‘devastating’ migraine.
The mum had a migraine that caused a mini stroke in 2010 so she’s always aware of the symptoms – which include neck pain and nausea.
‘I tried to sleep it off. I just assumed it was a migraine so I took some Panadol and went to bed.
‘Two hours later, I woke up to the most excruciating pain I’ve ever felt in my life. The pain was so bad I didn’t realise until I tried to get out of bed that I couldn’t move or feel my half of my body.
‘I fell to the floor because the left side of my body just wouldn’t work. I dragged myself up the hallway of our house, and I rang an ambulance.’
After several tests at the hospital, doctors discovered Tanya-lee’s C4 and C5 – the cervical nerves in her spine – had spontaneously shattered.
‘There was absolutely no reason, it just kind of happened,’ the mum said. ‘I had scans a few days prior that showed my cervical spine was intact, no bulging discs, so it was strange.’
Tanya-lee’s symptoms lead to two cervical spinal nerves spontaneously shattering and changing her life forever
The mum had a migraine that caused a mini stroke in 2010 so she’s always aware of the symptoms – which include neck pain and nausea
The hospital wanted to fly Tanya-lee out in a helicopter but the poor weather meant she had to take the seven hour journey to Sydney by road.
Tanya-lee recalled being ‘horrified’ and ‘furious’ her doctors asked her family to say goodbye to her because they weren’t sure if she was going to make it through the night.
‘I didn’t let my husband come down with me because I wanted my kids to have a sense of normalcy back home. I did it all by myself,’ she said.
‘I wouldn’t even let him tell my friends. It sounds ridiculous to me now, because I really needed people. But I chose to do it on my own, because I didn’t want to put anyone else through that.’
Her oldest son was in the middle of his HSC and Tanya-lee felt he shouldn’t have to worry about his mother in the hospital on top of the stress.
‘I think I went into fight or flight mode. Two of my kids have cerebral palsy and have a lot of PTSD surrounding hospitals. I felt like I needed to push myself through it and I didn’t need anybody’s help.
‘I was so worried about dying – but I didn’t want their last memory to be of me in the hospital like that.’
‘I didn’t let my husband come down with me because I wanted my kids to have a sense of normalcy back home. I did it all by myself,’ she said
Tanya-lee now has a titanium plate stabilising her cervical spine, and said the recovery time was a few weeks.
‘I was walking unassisted within two weeks of the surgery – but there was still weakness and numbness down the left side of my body.
‘Three months after that, I suddenly regressed and the paralysis to my left side got worse and I eventually couldn’t stand by myself and couldn’t walk unassisted at all. Doctors still have no idea why this happened.’
Now, Tanya-lee is in constant pain because of her nerve damage. The mum cannot walk without using a wheelchair or walking stick.
‘It’s like my skin is on fire,’ she explained. ‘It feels like I have green ants swarming around my skin at all times.
‘The pain has gotten so severe that sometimes I rip the skin off my thighs from scratching because it’s the only relief.’
The mum explained how her skin is sensitive to touch and feel – and that her husband accidentally brushing an arm against her can ‘set her off’ and feel like an ‘electric shock’.
Tanya-lee now has a titanium plate stabilising her cervical spine, and said the recovery time was a few weeks – but her condition regressed for mysterious reasons
The mum has had a difficult time finding work with many potential employers calling her a ‘liability’ to her face
One of the most difficult aspects of Tanya-lee’s ‘new normal’ is how people treat her.
‘Acquiring a disability is so much harder than being born with one because you just don’t know. My kids have never known better, that’s just how they were born, and that’s how they live.
‘Whereas when you acquire a disability, the first thing you’re looking at is all the things you planned for the future that will never happen.
‘My husband and I had our kids young because we wanted to grow up with them, we wanted to go out and have our own adventures afterwards. But now it’s like – are we going to be able to do that? What am I going to be capable of?’
The mum also shared how she’s had a difficult time finding work with many potential employers calling her a ‘liability’ to her face.
‘I’d always been an independent person, I was the carer. I didn’t want to be cared for. But now I’m a liability because I can’t stand for too long and I can’t sit for too long.
‘If I sit for too long I get spinal migraines, it’s a build up of pressure in the base of my skull. And then I’m out for days. They’re quite debilitating. No one really wanted to give me a go.’
Tanya-lee now runs a successful baking business where she also provides disability advocacy and helps other businesses with inclusive environments
Despite it all, Tanya-lee found a ray of light among the dark times.
‘I’ve always used baking as a tool to deal with my anxiety so I started doing it more for my sanity.
‘Now, I run a successful baking business and I get to provide disability advocacy and inclusion, and I help other businesses with their inclusive environments for their employees with disabilities.’
‘I really hated my life for the first few years because it wasn’t what I had planned,’ Tanya-lee said.
‘If you asked me eight years ago how I felt about having a spinal cord injury, I would have give you a lot of expletives, because that’s how I felt at the time.
‘But now I can actually say I’m proud to have a disability, and I’m proud of the person it has made me become.’
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