A
23-year-old woman who has been bed-ridden for 11 years has told her family she
wants to die in a suicide assisted clinic in Switzerland.
Kirsty Keep contracted lupus after she was
bitten by a bug in her back garden in Maidstone, Kent when she was 12 years
old. Her mother says Kirsty has asked her to help her end her life by taking
her to a Swiss clinic. Because of her condition, her immune system attacks
healthy cells, tissue and organs.
She
spent three weeks in hospital after the incident as the bite grew to the side
of a hand. By the age of 16, her face was paralysed by Bell’s palsy. Kirsty
also started 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.”
Her
mother Theresa believes she was bitten by a tick and that she may also be
suffering from the bacterial infection Lyme disease.
However,
tests for Lyme disease have come back negative, so Kirsty’s family are looking
at having alternative tests.
“When
she has bad days you feel like you’re watching her go,” said Theresa.
“She’s begged me to take her to Switzerland
and said she doesn’t want to do it anymore. 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.”
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.”