Battling Hartlepool woman gets ready to go back to work - days after having radiation treatment and screws in her head
Jade Henderson, 23, plans to return to her job as cabin crew after the latest phase in her amazing fightback to health.
Just days ago, we told how Jade’s life changed dramatically when she went for a night out with friends in Sunderland and South Tyneside last November.
She fought for life in a coma for ten days with doctors telling her mother Sharon Henderson, 50, that Jade probably would not survive.
Doctors found that Jade had an arteriovenous malformation (AVM) which disrupts blood flow and oxygen circulation – and that she’d had it since she was born without anyone knowing about it.
Experts have since discovered that Jade has three more AVMs which need careful treatment and monitoring to get rid of them.
But remarkable Jade fought back, first at South Tyneside Hospital and the Royal Victoria Infirmary in Newcastle. And now, she has had the latest stage of her treatment which was gamma knife radiation treatment at Sheffield Hallamshire Hospital.
The treatment uses small gamma rays to deliver a precise dose of radiation to a target. A frame was attached to Jade’s head with screws to stabilise the head during the procedure which targeted Jade’s remaining AVMs.
Jade also had an angiogram where a catheter was inserted into an artery in her groin to check for blocked or narrowed blood vessels.
She told the Mail: “I had a brace and had six holes and six screws that were put in my head. They also put a tube up my leg with a camera so they could see where the bleed and the AVMs were.”
She needs to have angiograms every six months for four years to check on her progress and after those four years, she will hopefully get the news that the treatment has completely worked.
"If the treatment starts progressing, then that’s it all done. It the AVM is still there, I have to start thinking if I want an operation which would be brain surgery.”
Despite spending a day having hospital treatment from last Friday to Saturday, Jade – who has a titanium plate permanently in her skull – is determined to get on with her life.
She said: “I am going back to work on Friday and I am back on a flight. I can’t wait.”
Jade, who is now 23, remained in hospital from November 9 to December 18 after her original collapse. She had to learn how to read, write, walk and talk all over again.
She was allowed home over Christmas and New Year and then went into rehabilitation where she stayed until a week before the pandemic restrictions started in March. That’s when she finally returned home to Hartlepool.
Incredibly, the remarkable Hartlepool woman has fought back and kept her job as cabin crew even though she has aphasia (a condition affecting her speech), dyslexia and has lost some eyesight.