Liberal Democrat health spokeswoman Daisy Cooper has revealed she was once told she had “only four days to live” as she shared her experiences of Crohn’s disease.
In her speech to the party’s autumn conference, she said that 12 years ago she was “rushed to hospital” and then “cried” when faced with the prospect of having to leave her job.
“A few weeks later I was told that without major surgery I only had four days to live,” he told delegates in Brighton.
‘My weight had dropped to around 40 kilos and my eyesight was failing.’
Recalling her experiences, she said her arms had turned “black and blue” and she was “only fed through a feeding tube.”
Liberal Democrat health spokeswoman Daisy Cooper shared her experiences of Crohn’s disease
“But it wasn’t the prospect of major surgery that upset me, it was what I was told afterward,” Cooper said.
“Even if you survive, Daisy, even if you recover, you will probably never work again. Your Crohn’s disease is so aggressive that you might be able to work one day a week at most.”
According to Crohn’s and Colitis UK, with Crohn’s disease “the immune system starts to attack the gut. This causes painful ulcers and inflammation that can appear anywhere in the gut, from the mouth to the bum.”
Around half a million Britons suffer from Crohn’s disease, which causes excruciating pain, diarrhoea, exhaustion and extreme weight loss. Around a third of sufferers with the condition, in which the lining of the gut becomes inflamed, will need surgery.
Crohn’s disease is an incurable disease in which parts of the digestive system become inflamed.
Doctors aren’t sure what triggers it, but it’s thought to be linked to an overactive immune system: fighter cells that are supposed to attack harmful toxins mistakenly destroy healthy tissue in the gut.
Around half a million Britons suffer from Crohn’s disease, which causes excruciating pain, diarrhoea, exhaustion and extreme weight loss (file image)
In her speech to the party’s autumn conference, she said that 12 years ago she was “rushed to hospital” and then “cried” when faced with the prospect of having to leave her job.
Ms Cooper, MP for St Albans and also deputy leader of the party, told the conference she had been told she would likely need further surgery and given an information pack about what benefits she might be entitled to.
She said she was lying in her hospital bed and “sobbing.”
“I cried and cried and cried for 17 hours straight. I felt like my world had collapsed. As an activist, I have always found meaning and purpose in my work,” she said.
“Like so many millions of people, the NHS didn’t just save my life; the people who make our NHS what it is gave me my life back.”
Later in her speech, Ms Cooper told Labour that if they did not see “the right level of ambition” from the Government on health, the Lib Dems would “hold them to the fire”.
In her maiden speech, Ms Cooper said she had a “message for the Labour Government”.
Addressing Health Secretary Wes Streeting, he said: ‘Take our ideas or come up with your own, and if we support them, we will back them.
“But if we don’t see the right level of ambition or urgency, we will hold them accountable.”