Please help me get a Medical bed - THANK YOU - we did it :-)

I am a single mother of two children aged 12 and 9.

Diagnosed December 2010 with Wegener’s granulomatosis, a rare autoimmune, necrotising vasculitis (my case was especially severe)

Over the last 7 years there have been a multitude of medical treatments, interventions and issues.

• Strawberry gingivitis - leading to the loss of many teeth and jaw bone surgery

• Chemotherapy - to suppress the Wegener’s

• Profoundly Deaf - damage to hearing nerves

• Blind in left eye - damage to optic nerve

• Cataracts

• Tracheotomy

• Emergency Heart Surgery - to insert to mechanical heart valves

• Congestive Heart Failure

• Lung Collapse

• Spleen infarct

• No immune system

• Heart surgery - to repair paravalvular leak after first surgery

• Induced Comas - after heart surgeries

• Pacemaker - due to complete heart block

• Subdural Haemorrhage

• Seizures

• Respiratory Arrest

• Cochlear Implant Surgery

• Tear Duct Surgery - to open up a blocked duct

• Tube feeding - could not eat orally due to the trachy and all the damage to vocal cords and throat (they were not actually sure if I would ever recover the ability to eat)

• Endocarditis

• Multiple Pneumonia's - often requiring life support, strong antibiotics and some with septic shock

• Heart failure

• Vocal cords damaged and not functioning fully

• Major Lung Surgery - to cut out bronchial stenosis

• Deaf for 2 years before I was stable enough to undergo surgery for a cochlear implant

My first admission lasted 9 months. Then many, many ambulance trips back to hospital. Recovery once I was stable enough included;

• Voice therapy to talk again

• Physiotherapy to learn to walk again

• Intense swallow therapy to learn how to eat again

Wegener’s does not have a known cause or a cure.

The major work seems to have been done to repair the damage done, so the daily battles now are;

• Arthritis

• Chronic Fatigue

• Pseudo gout (calcium pyrophosphate deposition disease)

• Vertigo

• Sleep Anxiety

• Avoiding illness as I do not have an immune system to fight it.

I now have a lot of internal metal. I have learnt recently that a memory foam mattress vs a metal coil mattress can be very beneficial health wise in this case, as there is no metal in the mattress to interfere with the embedded body metal.

• Sternal wires (stitches from open heart surgery)

• Cochlear implant

• Pacemaker

• Two mechanical heart valves

I wake up stiff and sore with headaches and joint pain. Memory foam means there is no pressure on pressure points

The mattress allows a zero gravity position to assist with fluid reduction on heart and lungs which I currently take medication for and poor circulation which leads to swelling in the feet and legs

It has the ability to raise the head and upper torso to help with and reduce bleeding noses, night time cough, breathing and clearing lungs. I currently sleep on several pillows to achieve this but this often means my head ends up with my chin to my chest during the night when you move around. I already have low O2 Sat (blood oxygen) levels so this is not ideal. Being able to raise the bed and creating a more natural sleep position for the head and neck will be of great health benefit.

This bed has a memory foam mattress designed by NASA with a 10 year guarantee. It also has the bonus feature of a gentle vibrating massage.

As I am on lifetime warfarin for medication my heart valves I cannot have massage, see a chiropractor or osteopath.

Having the gentle vibrating massage would help in relieving muscle tension and joint pain that is a constant.