Sarah approached us for help in 2010. She had heard of SBA The Solicitors’ Charity from a solicitor colleague. Her story makes distressing reading.

It is something that could happen to any one of us.

Sarah embraced life from an early age. She excelled at school academically and at sport, particularly running and tennis. She and her brother were the first in her family ever to go to University and she worked in the holidays to pay for her own education. She graduated with an excellent degree in Law from Nottingham University.

“SBA has given me a lifeline”

She trained and qualified in 2008 with a large law firm in the Midlands. Within two months of starting to practise as a solicitor she started to experience alarming pins and needles in her feet and a progressive numbness which moved up her legs to her stomach. Within 3 weeks Sarah was finding it painful to walk and suffered permanent vertigo so that the room was constantly spinning and out of focus. When within a matter of weeks she could no longer stand she was admitted to hospital for tests. She didn’t know what to think. She thought she might have a brain tumour.

In January 2009 she was diagnosed with MS and given steroids which helped, at least initially. Sarah was able to start working for a few hours, several days a week. However, her firm was making a wave of cuts and Sarah was selected for redundancy. She left work in April 2009.

Her health has been up and down and she has to go into hospital regularly for a number of days to receive by drip the steroids that she so badly needs to control her condition…She now needs to use a stick to walk and has a lightweight wheelchair – which she refuses to rely on.

Bright and irrepressibly bubbly, Sarah’s courage is an inspiration. She keeps herself constantly busy and refuses to give into her cruel illness. She says that MS is “not who she is – but what she has”. As a result of her aggressive MS causing regular relapses she is one of only 200 individuals in the country lucky enough to receive ground-breaking treatment which is already producing “fantastic” results. Sarah is just 29 years old.

“It has given me a chance to keep myself connected with the world and a chance to re-start my life again”

SBA has bought Sarah a laptop and is paying for her to undertake a Masters degree in Law (which she is taking part-time over two years) so that she can keep up-to-date with changes in the commercial legal world – and one day return to work. SBA also paid for her to have an essential short holiday.

Please help us to help more vulnerable young professionals like Sarah: sba.org.uk