'She is awake but does not have a clue what's going on'

Rare brain disease leaves Sienna, 4, facing years of rehab

- HOLLY EVANS

For the family of Sienna Dunion, the first indication that something was amiss came after she asked to return home just five minutes after heading out to play with her scooter.

A happy and excitable four-year-old, she and her older sister had just been told of a trip to Lapland for Christmas, and while she was delighted, she had also complained of feeling “cold and chilly”.

Her parents, Gary and Angelina Dunion, decided to keep her off school on Monday 17 November as she had a rising temperature, but given that she was still playing with her Barbies, they weren't overly concerned.

On the Wednesday morning she became unresponsive, with an emergency trip to A&E in Kettering turning into every parent’s worst nightmare as Sienna was placed into an induced coma and diagnosed with the rare brain disease acute necrotising encephalitis (ANE).

Three weeks later, Sienna’s family are facing the prospect that their daughter will never return to her old self, and that she requires years of intense rehabilitation to learn how to walk and talk again.