Heather West, 27, left “disabled” by a rare brain illness, plans to do a three-mile charity walk to encourage other patients.
Miss West fell ill with flu last year. She 1 from the flu but a month later she 2 suffering headache and poor balance. Her doctor gave her some medicine, but her condition didn't 3 and ten days later her father took her to the hospital. However, her condition got 4 : her speech slowed, her eyes couldn't look in one direction and she had 5 in walking. By the time the test results came out showing great 6 to her brain, she had become oblivious(无知觉的). Doctors told her parents it was a rare brain illness and 7 them she could die.
8 , her father said his daughter was very strongwilled and that she wouldn't 9 her life. For six weeks, he read to his daughter, though there was no 10 that showed she could hear. To the doctors' 11 , the 27yearold made a recovery, which is 12 —it affects just eight in a million people each year, and nobody has recovered. 13 Miss West improved. Her eyes, which stared in different 14 , got better. She learned to communicate by 15 her finger to say “yes” and putting it down to say “no”. Doctors 16 it would take her
weeks to learn to walk again, but Miss West 17 it nearly half the time. “She was always 18 and that was what helped her through,” said her father. Miss West, who will do the Race for Life in aid of Cancer Research on Sunday, 19 , “Walking the three miles will be a big 20 and I hope it will encourage others.”
