Urgent Appeal: Lucy’s Medical Treatment

About: Lucy Coleman is a 20-year-old young woman who has been battling severe Anorexia since 2020.

Lucy has spent over 21 months [almost 2yrs] of the last four years battling this illness in psychiatric hospitals and enduring rounds of tube feeding to prevent organ failure.

Lucy, a girl who was awarded a music scholarship to secondary school, was regularly the lead in her school plays, who was a straight 'A' student, who was popular, outgoing and beautiful, inside and out, missed most of her secondary school education as a result of this illness and was too unwell to sit her Leaving Certificate. Her bright future has been replaced with a relentless fight for survival.

Lucy’s life has been a delicate balance between short moments of “normalcy” and lengthy hospital stays. Despite after discharges from these inpatient stays, when she appeared 'well' physically, the eating disorder still held her hostage daily, tortured her every move & decision - this is the unseen part of the heartbreak that anorexia brings and ultimately what is getting too hard for her to fight every single day.

As you are all probably aware, Eating disorder support services are severely wait listed and under-resourced in Ireland and at this point, given the severity of her illness, the appropriate treatment and care for Lucy is quite simply not available to her in Ireland. The family have tirelessly exhausted every avenue and Lucy's health continues to deteriorate daily, in particular her mental health, she is profoundly depressed and has lost all sense of hope.

Through undertaking extensive research, we have found what we believe is the place that would be the appropriate treatment that can turn Lucy’s life around and for her to finally get the support she requires to beat this. This is in a treatment facility in Cape Town, South Africa; Ekeso Montrose Manor.

Montrose Manor specialises only in the treatment of severe and enduring eating disorders. They have a 3-month residential therapeutic program which integrates traditional and innovative psychotherapeutics modalities with high success rates.There is a bed available to Lucy until next Monday 11th November 2024.

However, this specialised treatment comes at a significant cost. It is estimated that the required treatments & associated costs of travel for Lucy will cost the family in excess of €50,000.

We are making an urgent appeal for help to friends, family and those who understand how this cruel disease destroys lives and the lives of those who love them. We only have a small window of time to raise these funds, while the place on the programme still remains available to Lucy (Monday 11th November).

Every donation, big or small, can make a life-changing difference to Lucy and her family, and they will be forever grateful for any assistance in getting Lucy the help she so urgently needs.

THANK YOU FOR TAKING THE TIME TO READ LUCY’S STORY – YOUR SUPPORT WOULD MEAN SO MUCH

Media & Statistics:

Sky Sports Jeff Sterling plea on Eating Disorders

Anorexia:

• Has the highest case mortality rate of any other mental health illness

• 10,200 deaths each year are the direct result of an eating disorder—that’s one death every 52 minutes

• Eating disorder sufferers with the highest symptom severity are 11 times more likely to attempt suicide than their peers without eating disorder symptoms, and even those with sub-threshold symptoms are 2 times more likely. Patients with anorexia have a risk of suicide 18 times higher than those without an eating disorder.

• Early intervention and comprehensive treatment are crucial in reducing the mortality risk associated with anorexia nervosa. Despite the severity of the disorder, recovery is possible with appropriate support and care