Mum pledges to fight after daughter’s death

Dec 27 2009 by Dan Warburton, Sunday Sun

Stacy-Jane, who was a childcare student at Ashington College, was born with a defective strand of DNA that lay hidden inside her body for her entire childhood.

But when she turned 15 she began to lose her balance and co-ordination.

Worried, her family took her to her GP and she was referred to Newcastle’s RVI.

There she underwent a series of tests by specialist consultants.

But tragically, in February last year she collapsed and had a series of fits so severe she suffered acute brain damage.

For more than 18 months afterwards she fought for life through crippling fits and required round-the-clock care which her family gave lovingly without complaint.

Then just two months ago she suffered a seizure which left her in a coma for three weeks and when she woke her family knew it would be difficult for her to leave her bed in Newcastle General Hospital.

The 19-year-old’s immune system was so weak it was unable to cope and when she contracted the hospital-acquired superbug clostridium difficile she died surrounded by Jane, her daughter Rebecca, 22, and her devastated dad, Pete Iveson, 42, a delivery driver from Seghill, Northumberland.

Jane, who has four other children, Gregory, 17, Warren, 13, Liam, 18, and Portia, 16, today revealed her heartache.

She said: “She was loving, kind, generous, she was one in a million.

“She would help anybody and she was a fantastic young woman – she was no ordinary teenager.

“Seeing her have seizures was so hard.

“I tried to stay calm but I was terrified inside.

“I knew that if she saw me scared she would have been frightened, I had to put on a brave face for her.

Jane, who used to work as a hairdresser, is now planning a sponsored skydive in a bid to boost funds to help research the disease.

All the contributions for Stacy- Jane’s funeral are also going towards the fund.

Jane said: “She kept us strong by showing us that her terminal disease was not going to beat her and allow herself to become housebound.”