A young woman who fights for her life every day and wants to die in a Swiss clinic because of a condition that started when she was bitten by an INSECT eleven years ago.
Kirsty Keep, 23, is too weak to even open a door ever since she contracted lupus following a bug bite in her back garden when she was just 12-years-old – and now she keeps asking her mum to help end her life.
Kirsty was left suffering from lupus, a condition where her immune system attacks healthy cells, tissue and organs, and possibly more illnesses that have been left diagnosed.
Her family are now raising money to investigate her illness which has left her wanting to end her short life.
Pretty Kirsty spent three weeks in hospital shortly after the incident as the bite quickly spread to the size of a hand.
The bite, which has transformed her life over the past ten years, left her at 16 with a face paralysed by Bell’s palsy, sudden and severe facial pain that feels like electric shocks.
And to make matters worse, she began having seizures 18 months ago.
Speaking from her hospital bed, Kirsty said: “My bones feel like they’re being snapped and my muscles ripped.
“It feels like there’s someone inside me pulling my insides.”
She is desperate to find out more about her illness.
Kirsty‘s mum Theresa believes she was bitten by a tick in her back garden in Maidstone, Kent, and is also suffering from Lyme disease, a bacterial infection that has symptoms in common with lupus.
But tests in the UK came back negative, so her family and friends are resorting to alternative tests.
Mum Theresa said: “When she has bad days you feel like you’re watching her go.
“She’s begged me to take her to Switzerland and said she doesn’t want to do it any more.
“That’s not something you want to hear from your daughter. You’re heartbroken every day.
“Every few months, when she can’t stop being sick, she has to come into hospital and go on a drip because she’s dehydrated. All she wants is a normal life.”
Chloe, Kirsty‘s sister has set up a Go Fund Me page to raise money for her cause.
She said: “Kirsty spends 90 per cent of her time in bed she has to have 24/7 care.
“She can’t be left on her own, this is not a life for a 23-year-old.
“The NHS don’t seem to know what to do.
“We really need help to get her to see a private specialist but any help or advice is more than welcome.”
A life-long friend of tragic Kirsty Keep, who contracted Lupus after being bitten by an insect on her lower back when she was 12, is raising money to help her see a specialist in Germany.
Hollie Breeze Hughes, 23, said: “Some days are good for her, some days are really terrible – it depends.
“When it’s bad, it’s really bad. It makes her muscles feel like their ripping and her bones are breaking.
“I’ve been her best friend since I was eight years old.”
Best pal Hollie knew Kirsty before she first got ill, and has vowed to stay by her side through her struggle with the debilitating condition.
She said: “I moved to Maidstone when I was eight and moved into the house next door.
“I’ve been on holiday with her – to France and Finland. It’s really bad, compared to what she used to be like. It’s so horrible to see.
“She was like a normal person. Now she can’t make plans because you don’t know how she’s going to be.
“It used to be the three of us – me, Kirsty and her sister, Kerrie.
“I’ve been to visit her in the hospital loads of times.”
Now Hollie and Kerry are trying to raise as much money as possible to send Kirsty to a specialist clinic in Germany.
She said: “We’re trying to raise as much as possible.
“We’re doing a raffle night, and have had some amazing prizes – holidays, meals out.
“All the money raised will go towards Kirtsy. We think she’s got Lyme Disease.
“She wants to fly to Germany to see a doctor there and get checked.”
To donate to Kirsty, go to https://www.gofundme.com/
