Bryony seemed perfectly able until her swimming teacher noticed she wasn’t doing breaststroke legs properly. After various medical examinations, she was told at age 12 that she had a severe progressive muscle wasting condition, which even to this day remains undiagnosed.
At 14 she suffered a severe chest infection as result of the muscle condition, and was referred as an emergency to Addenbrooke’s Hospital in Cambridge. It was a close call, but Addenbrooke’s saved her life. She spent 5 months there recovering and had to have a tracheostomy and gastrostomy before being discharged home and back to school.
Bryony is now severely disabled and lives at her home in Hertfordshire, England.
Teenager Tillie Benford lives with her ditzy single mum. Tillie is severely disabled, but doesn’t let that stop her from living her life as fully as she can. She helps one of the new starters from school, bad boy Zack Johnson, through rehab when he finds himself partly paralysed after being hit by...