Jessica's Journey

Four months ago at the age of 10 years old, Jessica was taken seriously ill and diagnosed with Anorexia.

At the end of last year her mum Sarah could see that something was going very wrong. Jessica was endlessly running, training and going to a point where it became completely obsessional. She was restricting her food intake to only 'healthy options' cutting out carbs, fats and sugars, eating tiny quantities and becoming so very thin.

At the beginning of May she became so sick after a two day gastro bug taking no food or fluids, she could barely move and had pains in her chest and arms.

The Westpac helicopter was called by the local medical center to fly her to Dunedin for an emergency admission with heart tachycardia complications and severe dehydration. Before the helicopter arrived it took three attempts to get an IV line into her arm as her veins had shrunk away so badly.

At Dunedin Paediatrics Jessica was on 24 hour monitoring of her vital signs as she had such a low blood pressure, low breathing rate and uneven heart rate - it was so frightening for her mum lying in a bed beside her at night as the alarms went off when her breathing or heart rate dropped to dangerous levels.

She was on IV fluids for two and a half days before being physically restrained to put onto a nasal gastric tube in place to start to slowly re feed her - she weighed 23 kg.

Sarah stayed with Jessica at Dunedin for a month while she slowly became medically stable and regained some of the lost weight for her internal organs to start to function correctly, then they were flown to the eating disorder unit at the Princess Margaret Hospital, Christchurch.

They missed other daughter Katy's 13th birthday.

Since June, Sarah has been supporting Jessica slowly to regain weight. Working with her doctors and team, Sarah has helped Jessica learn to accept the three meals and three snacks needed each day to rebuild her body and mind.

Her room was decorated with pictures the nurses had printed off the internet of horses and of her at home with her pets, friends and ponies which gave her a lift. One thing that really helped give her an incentive was if she managed to eat she got to see "the Kaimanawa horse program". She loved watching it and the sisters in action, and Sarah saw some of that cheeky spark surface - it helped big time!! It even inspired one nurse to use the concept of her anorexia as a wild horse to gently but firmly bring under control and tame.

She reached her goal weight of 30 kg mid August but things are not going well - her mind is still firmly in the grip of anorexia.

Distractions help encourage Jessica but after much research we believe she needs a huge change and a strong focus.

Before she became seriously ill Jessica was a highly competitive soccer and rugby player, as well as a strong long distance runner, swimmer but most importantly she has a strong passion for horses, something which has been with her since she was four years old.

This is where Sarah decided to think BIG. As a desperate request she wrote a letter to the Wilson family of 'Keeping up with the Kaimanawas' fame to ask if they would consider taking Jessica in as a 'little sister project'. Believing that a combination of a complete change of environment and involvement with things she is passionate about along with others who are equally passionate would help break the cycle and get Jessica free of this nasty eating disorder.

On receipt of Sarah's email the Wilson sisters and family replied the same day with an incredible 'Yes' and 'as soon as possible'. They have invited both Sarah and Jessica up for three weeks, Sarah would stay for a few days and then return home to Kurow to her other daughter Katy before returning later at the end of her visit to collect her.

As a consequence of the last horrific four months Sarah has been unable to work and needs to fundraise to pay for the flights up to Whangarei and pay for Jessica's keep whilst up there. She is also very conscious that she will need to have a positive drawcard for Jessica on return to North Otago, something which we are working on.

Here is a link to an interesting article about eating disorders which is worth reading http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10738928