Featured Image Credit: GoFundMe
Topics: Health, Mental Health, News, UK News, Covid-19, Coronavirus
Rhiannon Ingle
Topics: Health, Mental Health, News, UK News, Covid-19, Coronavirus
A bedridden mum battling long Covid has decided she wants to end her life in an assisted dying facility.
Kelly Louise Smith-May, 39, from Chipping Sodbury in Gloucestershire, was infected with Covid in 2021 and has spent nearly two years in constant agony and unable to look after her children.
She's been fully bedbound since July 2022.
The mother-of-four is now asking for £10,000 to travel to Switzerland's Pegasos Swiss Association 'to end her suffering'.
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She told journalist Nate Bear: "Every human being has a cut off point and I've reached that so I decided VAD (voluntary assisted dying) was my best option to be at peace forever.”
After contracting Covid in 2021, Kelly said: "First it was my brain that felt totally not right. I was constantly dizzy and felt like there was a huge fog inside my brain. It’s been like this ever since. It affected my vision straight away too. I felt poisoned."
According to a GoFundMe, Kelly has been suffering 'constantly' every day since she got Covid in December of 2021.
It reads: "Long Covid progressed to severe myalgic encephalomyelitis (ME/CFS), a neurological disease.
"She spends all day every day in the dark, painfully sensitive to light, noise, smells, and movement and touch."
Kelly's disease has since sadly 'progressed to a very severe state'.
The fundraiser continues: "She can no longer sit, stand, or walk. She can barely talk.
"Due to painful neurological symptoms, she can’t tolerate music, TV, or interacting with friends.
"Her isolation is extreme."
Kelly told Bear: "It’s pure relentless, inhumane, cruel suffering that never let's up, not even for two minutes. I always feel a heartbeat away from dying."
The mum can no longer care for her four children whom she 'absolutely adores with every piece of her heart' nor spend time with her 'loving husband'.
She is now 'totally dependent' on her husband for all her personal care needs and 'has to toilet on the bed with the help of her husband as she's too weak to now use a commode'.
Kelly also 'goes four to six weeks without having her hair washed' due to 'extreme sensitivity to touch'.
The GoFundMe continues: "She suffers continuous pain throughout her body that doctors are unable to relieve, leaving her with no choice but to end her own suffering.
"She has tried to hold on, but 22 months of daily suffering is enough."
It concludes: "Your kindness and generosity will give to Kelly the gift of freedom from pain with respect for her family, who support her choice and want to honor the woman she is."
According to its website, Pegasos Swiss Association is a not-for-profit voluntary assisted dying (VAD) organisation based in Basel, Switzerland.
"Pegasos believes that it is the human right of every rational adult of sound mind, regardless of state of health, to choose the manner and timing of their death," its website reads.
You can donate to the GoFundMe here.