Featured Image Credit: SWNS
Topics: News, Parenting, Money, Food and Drink
Emma Guinness
It's no secret that the cost of living crisis is having a devastating effect up and down the country, and now one mum has been hospitalised from starvation.
Kelly Thomson, 43, an unemployed mum-of-two with long Covid, reduced her intake to just one a meal a day so that her kids could eat and this saw her needing treatment for malnutrition.
In fact, things got so bad for Kelly that she found herself hospitalised twice, and she admitted that she considered resorting to begging.
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The mum's fortunes took a turn for the worse during the pandemic when she was forced to give up her job as a cleaner in December 2020 after developing long Covid.
Kelly explained that after rent, she had just £40 a week - or £160 a month - to feed herself and her two children, and it just didn't stretch far enough with soaring food costs to feed them all.
Recalling what it was like to feel her health deteriorating, Kelly, who lost two stone, said that she needed multiple blood transfusions.
The mum, from Slough, said: "I would wake up every morning and think 'oh my God, not again'."
But while Kelly suffered for the sake of her children, they also had to go without too and the family, who used food banks, had to take her daughter's birthday present to Cash Converters to get money for food.
However, everything changed for the trio when their story was shared online and kind strangers suggested that Kelly set up a GoFundMe to help them through this difficult time.
While she initially set it up this summer with the aim of raising £50 to help with food costs, this target was completely surpassed and over £8,000 was raised.
This has completely transformed the family's lives, taking them almost out of debt and into a position of comparative stability.
Kelly said that she shut the fundraiser after this amount was raised because she didn't want to take more than her family needed.
The mum said that once her health has improved, she is hoping to return to work to help change her family's fortunes for good.
Kelly said: "When I saw the fundraiser had reached £8,000 I nearly fainted. I cried my eyes out.
"I couldn't believe that something like that could ever happen to me.
"The first thing I did was go and get back my children's toys which I had to take to the pawn shop to buy food.
"I've paid off all my debts - I'm even in credit, and now I can sleep at night for the first time in years because I don't have debts hanging over me.
"I'm getting back to health and looking to get back into work, and I can tell it's a weight off my kids' shoulders because I'm not stressed."
However, it is worth noting that this is just one family, which is why it is so important to donate to your local food bank and help out - if you're able - those less fortunate than yourself.