DOCTORS TELL TEACHER IT’S TOO DANGEROUS FOR HER TO WORK WITH CHILDREN
Hannah takes more than 100 tablets and 18 IV injections every day and has had to give up the job she loves
ATEACHER who caught measles during the South Wales outbreak has been forced to give up the job she loves, after doctors said she couldn’t work with children any more.
Hannah Harry, 26, now spends her days at home and takes more than 100 tablets and 18 IV injections every day.
Hannah has Ehlers-Danlos syndrome, Postural Orthostatic Tachycardia syndrome (PoTS) and mass cell activation disorder and her life revolves around daily treatments and hospital appointments up to three times a week.
“It’s taken me six years to get to this point and it’s just part of my normal routine now. I’m very lucky because I’ve got a very supportive family and fiancé. People have been surprised as to how serious my conditions are, as sometimes I’ll go out for a couple of hours and I don’t tell people I’ve had to go home for treatment.
“I don’t want people to define me that way. Yes, it is tough and my conditions are hard work. But if people with my condition read my story I want them to be able to know that there is some positivity – in the end you just have to get on with it.”
Hannah, who lives in Neath, has struggled with her health since childhood. She said: “I can remember not being able to do a lot of the things that other children could do – I’d fall asleep during films and things like that.
“I have very vivid memories of falling asleep in class. We still laugh about it now, how I’d always take myself to quiet parts of the classroom to have a little sleep.
“It became my routine after lunch. I can remember the overwhelming feeling of the energy being drained out of my little body.”
Her weight became an issue, as she found it almost impossible to eat and stay awake, and she also frequently caught infections, which would leave her seriously ill in hospital.
Even after repeated tests, doctors and specialists could not work out what was wrong.
In 2009, Hannah moved into halls at Trinity St David’s to study teaching. While there, she was diagnosed with Ehlers Danlos syndrome, a group of rare inherited conditions that affect connective tissue.
Determined to live a normal life and unaware of the severity of her condition, Hannah went out and lived like a typical student.
In 2011, at the age of 21, she fell seriously ill yet again.
After three days of exhausting and painful testing at the National Hospital for Neurology and Neurosurgery, she said she was diagnosed with Postural Orthostatic Tachycardia Syndrome (PoTS).
Hannah described PoTS as a condition where her body fails to do everything it is supposed to do, such as keep warm and regulate her heartbeat, so she needs medication to help it function.
Hannah managed to finish her degree while in hospital – completing her final dissertation on the ward.
After starting her medication, Hannah said, she started to “come back to life”.
“It was surreal,” she said. “I didn’t realise how ill I was until I started to feel better.”
She got her first teaching job soon after, in a primary school in her home town. Hannah loved her job and was enjoying getting back to normal.
But when a measles outbreak hit South Wales in 2012, the young teacher, who wasn’t vaccinated against measles as a child due to her allergies, caught the disease when it broke out in her school. She also caught pneumonia. Hannah was rushed to Morriston Hospital in Swansea and spent nine weeks in intensive care. She describes it as a “terrifying, life-threatening experience” and said while she can’t remember a lot of it, it was “horrific” for her family.
Hannah beat the measles but her low immune system meant that doctors said she couldn’t work with children any more in case she picked something else up.
She said: “I was devastated. I’d spent three years working at university and now I was being told I wasn’t able to do my dream job. I know it was for my own safety but it was hard to cope with.”
Unable to get a job, Hannah decided to write a blog to help spread positivity about her conditions.
“I just wanted to highlight the positives. Sometimes I can sit around and watch Disney films all day and nobody can call me lazy.”
Hannah said she has had a “great reaction” to her blog from people with and without the condition.
“People have said that reading my blog has helped them, even if it’s just getting a bit of perspective,” she said.
You can follow Hannah’s blog here: www.medicsmylineandme. com/