Northumberland mum says she would sell her house for daughter's treatment

The mother of a Northumberland woman with a rare condition says she would sell her house to get her daughter the treatment she needs.

Melanie Hartshorn from Cramlington, who has Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome (EDS), recently travelled to Spain for surgery to fuse her neck and spine together after a benefactor provided a loan of £17,000 which she needed to fund the procedure.

However, surgeons realised she now needs a second operation at an additional cost of £50,000. She was then placed into an induced coma which she has now come out of, but she remains in intensive care.

Her mother Molly says she is not sure what happens next if they cannot raise the money for the second operation.

She told ITV News: "I don't know. I'd probably have to sell the house or something when I get back. I'm just hoping that we can raise the amount of money it takes.

"They don't have facilities here to do a (payment) plan or anything, so money has to be raised before they operate. The only other thing they can do is postpone the operation, but then she'd have to come back to England and be in pain."

Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome (EDS) means Melanie's joints are hyper flexible and unstable, and a rare complication means her neck and spine “disconnect”, causing fitting, seizures, vomiting and dizziness.

As a result, she has spent more than 17 months wearing a surgical halo and vest to keep her spine and neck in alignment. Normally, the equipment is worn for a few months or weeks at a time and Melanie has to spends almost all of her time lying down.

Molly says a total of £86,000 has been raised for Melanie's treatment to this point and described the public response to her appeals as 'incredible'.

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