A young woman’s trip to the hospital for four days of tests turned into a two year battle which left her paralysed and fearing she may never be able to speak again.
Megan Dixon was 13 years old when she began to feel unwell.
By age 16 her health had deteriorated to such an extent that she had lost the ability to speak.
She was taken to hospital for tests which were only supposed to take four days, doctors believed the teenager may have suffered a stroke.
Two years later she was completely paralysed. Unable to walk, talk or open her eyes, with doctors saying she may never move again.
Megan was diagnosed with Functional Neurological Disorder (FND), a condition which affected how her brain received and sent information to the rest of the body.
Megan told BBC News that the condition left her unable to talk or do anything for herself.
‘I couldn’t see, so I wasn’t able to open my eyes. My brain couldn’t register the difference between eyes closed and eyes being open,’ she added.
Megan Dixon was left paralysed and unable to speak after being taken into hospital when she was 16
Now aged 20, she is sharing her experiences of FND on her TikTok account
Megan is now able to stand but requires a lot of support and can only manage a few steps
At the age of 18, Megan was moved from the hospital in Bath to a neurological care home in Peterborough to receive the care she needed.
Megan said she was ‘just a baby’ at the time and had never been on her own before.
‘It was not easy. I think it was a lot harder for my mum and dad to have to leave me there on my own, but I couldn’t do anything for myself. I was paralysed from the neck down,’ she said.
Megan said her condition started off slowly when she was 13 but she began to deteriorate rapidly in 2021.
She lost the ability to swallow and was fed by a feeding tube in her mouth, which has been replaced by one straight into her stomach.
At one point she was having 50 seizures a day, but that has now been reduced to between 10 and 15.
Now aged 20, and after 18 months of extensive therapy, Megan is preparing to move into her own home and hopes to become a nail technician.
Her life has changed dramatically and she can now talk and move by herself.
Megan now hopes she will be able to move into a home with her boyfriend Oli
After believing she may never leave the hospital, Megan is planning to take a course to become a nail technician
She has contractions in her knees, meaning she is unable to bend them, leaving her legs stuck straight. It means she will never walk again.
Megan said she never expected that she would be able to plan a life outside of the hospital.
She said her body shut down so much that she nearly died in hospital.
She said: ‘The doctors did have to tell my parents to prepare for the worst – they didn’t think I would make it to 18 and here I am at 20.’
Megan is now saving up money to take an online course to become a nail technician.
She is looking to move out and find a home with her boyfriend Oli.
Megan now shares her experiences of the condition on TikTok.
On her account she has shared herself using a wheelchair for the first time and how she was able to walk for the first time in a swimming pool.
One video shows her using the stairs for the first time in over three years, using her arms to pull herself up and lower herself down again.
She said that at times she had been left isolated, frustrated and exhausted due to how ‘unpredictable’ life with FND had been.
Now she says every small victory such as moving a finger or speaking a word is ‘worth celebrating’.
