Melanie's plea for help to raise £60k for life-saving op

A University of Sunderland student needs to raise more than £60,000 to get pioneering spinal surgery that can save her life.

- by Neil Fatkin

Three years ago Melanie Hartshorn flew to Barcelona for lifesaving surgery after raising thousands of pounds to undergo the pioneering procedure, which isn't available on the NHS.

Melanie, 36, who has enrolled in the university's primary school teacher training programme, said: "As well as muscular dystrophy, I suffer from Ehlers-Danlos syndrome, which was causing my skull to dislocate from my spine.

"It was causing me to have seizures, any one of which could have killed me.

"I was placed in a metal halo which was a brace with screws that attached my head to my neck.

"I was in it for 18 months - the longest anyone has ever been in one - before I went to Barcelona for surgery to fuse my spine and neck together."