A man will be walking from his home in Leeds to Bath in a bid to raise money towards his girlfriend’s Lyme Disease treatment.
From May 16, Nathaniel Pells will walk an average of 28.5miles a day for seven days from Alwoodley to reach India Matthews’s home 200 miles away.
The couple met in 2016 as they were backpacking through Southeast Asia. India, then 18, was bitten by an insect in a restaurant in Thailand and has been struggling with Lyme Disease ever since.
Read more: Leeds family's heartbreak as beloved sister, 24, dies after suffering severe headaches
According to the NHS, Lyme disease is a bacterial infection that can be spread to humans by infected ticks. It's usually easier to treat if it's diagnosed early.
India, now 24, tried to carry on as normal but not long after, she began experiencing fatigue, a stiff neck and fever because “it’s common to pick up various bugs travelling.”
However, her health got worse and a month later her symptoms had spiralled out of control. India suffered from blurred and foggy vision, seizures, sleep paralysis, sensitivity to noise and bright lights and more.
India visited different hospitals all over Vietnam, Singapore, Bali and Japan to find out what was going on but she received no answers. When she got back to England she was sent to a number of medical consultants including neurologists, rheumatologists, tropical disease specialists, and ophthalmologists but still received no answers.
After a year and a half at a clinic in Germany she was diagnosed with Lyme Disease.
Nathaniel said: “I’m from Leeds and she’s from Bath we’ve always had a long-distance [relationship] and we’ve always joked about the distance. She would joke and say I wish you could walk down to mine. We had a joke that it would be funny to walk that far so I decided to do something original to raise money.
“I thought I would put it into perspective how she feels on long walks if she has to walk a mile it can run her down the rest of the day.”
India, who has been on a variety of Lyme disease treatments since her diagnosis, said: “I’ve been ill for over six years, I got ill when I was 18-years-old with me being 24 now. The past two weeks have been going downhill, it’s been getting to me. I’ve been struggling with my symptoms. I can’t do everything people my age are doing. I look very well, I will meet people and they don’t know I’m ill.”
The fundraising page explains: “Over the years India has spent many hours and nights in A&E due to the intensity of her symptoms. She has also suffered from pancreatitis and developed several autoimmune conditions including daily orthostatic hypotension (extremely low blood pressure), and not to mention her mental health has of course taken a big hit.
“India is unable to take part in most ‘normal’ activities and daily tasks most 24-year-old's can do without thinking. She feels unwell every time she drinks alcohol, her symptoms flare up massively if she has poor sleep, going on a quick 10-minute run could put her in bed for a week with intense headaches and head pressure, any form of transport makes her feel spaced out and dizzy, she has to be careful with the food she eats and she can’t focus on things for too long as it causes strange visual and head symptoms (this makes working, staring at a computer, driving and extensive reading incredibly challenging).
“Six years on, India would argue she is 60% better. Although many may not know or realise because she looks ‘well’, she still experiences a broad range of neurological, autonomic, digestive, heart and fatigue symptoms on a daily basis.”
If you would like to donate money towards India’s Lyme Disease treatment, click here.
