THE MOTHER-OF-ONE from Cork who suffers from so-called Locked In syndrome and was due to be brought home from a London hospital to die in her native city has surprised doctors by starting to breathe on her own again, family members say.
Catherine O’Leary (32), from Ballincollig, Co Cork, was flown by Air Corps Helicopter to London this month for vital rehabilitation at the Royal Hospital for Disability in Putney. Her condition deteriorated in mid-October and she was put on a ventilator in intensive care at Kingston Hospital, London.
Doctors told Catherine’s father Pat that she was unlikely to survive and arrangements were made to bring the former restaurant manager home to Cork to die.
Catherine suffered two strokes during brain surgery in February this year. She was diagnosed with Locked In syndrome, a condition in which a patient is aware and awake, but cannot move or communicate due to paralysis of nearly all voluntary muscles in the body.
Catherine has since been transferred to St Anthony’s Hospital in Sutton, London. Doctors said Catherine would never breathe unaided again, but she has defied the odds and is breathing on and off without a ventilator.
Pat O’Leary, her father, said: “Here in St Anthony’s now . . . they are saying she is coming on fine and we have been talking to the consultant and we are going to start weaning her off the ventilator so she breathes on her own all the time, which is fantastic. We talk to her as we have done all the time.”
He said that though there was great uncertainty surrounding Catherine’s condition, he is hopeful for her future. “ . . . But my daughter Catherine is a fighter and she is not going to give up in a hurry . . . But she will be on the ventilator at night to give her a break. We will never give up.”