Mim Goldsmith, 25, from Brighton, says she “twisted” while having a shower and immediately knew something was badly wrong. It led to her becoming bedbound and suffering seizures
A woman has told how she “twisted” in the shower while washing her hair and found herself paralysed.
Mim Goldsmith, now 25, had aggravated a previous spinal injury and began losing feeling from the waist down. Hospital scans showed the tiny movement reinjured her spinal cord which suffered damage when she fell out of bed age 15.
She was diagnosed with functional neurological disorder (FND) – a brain network disorder than can provoke symptoms including limb weakness, paralysis – and seizures.
The speech and language therapist became bedbound, suffering five seizures a day – and a consultant told her, aged 23, that she should “just go and live in a nursing home”.
But after doing her own research to help her progress, along with trial and error, she is able to live more independently – using a power chair for day-to-day life. Mim, from Brighton, East Sussex, said: “I remember being in the shower and suddenly losing feeling from the belly button down.
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“I hobbled to bed in unbelievable amounts of back pain – and scans showed it caused a re-injury of my previous back injury. In hospital, I felt like a lost cause but through determination and stubbornness, I fought and fought, having lots of physiotherapy and occupational therapy.
“I have already beaten the odds in many ways – lots of people with FND never return to work, which I have. I’m showing what’s possible and I want to do everything I can to change people’s minds.”
Mim graduated to become a speech and language therapist at Reading University just weeks before her life-changing injury in the shower on June 15, 2023.
She said: “I twisted and immediately thought, ‘oh s***, this is bad’.” Scans showed several herniated discs with scarring and bulges, and she needed a catheter. A few days later, Mim began having seizures which lasted up to three-and-a-half hours.
She said: “I was able to sit for about 20 minutes a day, and the rest I was just flat. I was told by a consultant that I should ‘go and live in a nursing home’ – at 23 years old.” Doctors prescribed physiotherapy but a traumatic event occurring in her personal life hampered her physical progress too, and led to her having seizures.
She said: “The seizures were directly linked to the pain from my injury – like my neurological system got confused and decided whenever I feel a lot of pain, a seizure will help to fix it.”
Mim discharged herself, against medical advice, and ended up going to University College London Hospital. She saw physiotherapists and neurological occupational therapists who helped her regain some movement and reduce her seizures to one a day.
She said: “Over time I was able to get back on my feet – I got to walk a few steps, a couple of times a day. It was about building back the neurological pathways, but I could only do as much as I was able to without triggering a seizure.”
A new medication helped minimise her seizures. After seven weeks, in September 2023, she was discharged, and spent months building her stamina and strength, so she could sit upright in a chair for a full day so she could work.
