Mother given 10 years to live after floods bring on disease

Former nurse Lynn Hind, 52, of Wold Road, Hull, was one of thousands of people in the city whose homes were ruined by the summer inundations.

She has been diagnosed with scleroderma, an incurable fatal skin condition that attacks internal organs, which doctors said was brought on by stress related to the trauma she suffered in the floods.

Speaking on the third anniversary of the deluge yesterday, she said: "I've been told I will live for about nine to 10 years after diagnosis, if I'm taken care of.

"If the rain hadn't come I wouldn't be in this situation. I knew something was wrong about a year after the floods, but I couldn't quite put my finger on it.

"My GP said I might have post-traumatic stress due to the floods. A year later they sat me down and gently told me I had scleroderma.

"I was referred to a consultant and she explained that I would have had a rogue gene that stayed dormant until something triggered it.

"I told her about my life and she said the only thing she could think of that could have possibly triggered it was the stress that I suffered due to the floods in 2007.

"I was petrified of water because I nearly drowned as a child. The consultant said that my fear of water and being so panic-stricken and frightened was prolonged stress that could have been the trigger which woke up the gene and caused scleroderma."

The mother of one is now classed as disabled and cannot work. She is taking immune suppression tablets to limit the immediate effects of the condition.

Describing the condition, she said: "The disease has taken a lot from me. There is no cure for it, it's a case of them trying to handle it.

"My hands and feet are a funny colour due to the blood vessels shutting down. I can't sit for any length of time. I can't do what I want to do, I'm stiff all the time and it's painful; it's as if my skin is too small for me.

"If I have a busy day I then have to have a rest day the next day. Each day is a challenge."

Mrs Hind said she was bitter about what the floods had done to her, and missed the life she had.

She said: "I've got a lovely family, a lovely son and they support me. I'd give anything to go back to those days where I could do what I wanted. I took it so much for granted when I was well, when I was normal.

"I'm not depressed, but I'm angry that I have been dealt a hand that I didn't deserve. But you've got to get on with it."

A spokeswoman from the Scleroderma Society, Kim Fligelstone, confirmed that the illness – which affects just one in 10,000 people – could have been triggered by the floods.

She said: "The cause of scleroderma is still unknown. It is not contagious. It's believed that people with scleroderma have a genetic predisposition for the illness and often environmental factors act as triggers for the disease onset.

"Environmental factors include stress, and although it's almost impossible to prove, they do think that when people have suffered stress it is likely that it is what brought the scleroderma on.

"It's possible this lady could have developed scleroderma as a result of the floods."

Recalling other examples of the illness being triggered by a traumatic event, she said: "At a meeting I went to recently one of the professors was saying he had two patients who were police officers. They had both been stabbed and developed scleroderma. He believes that was due to the stress of what happened to them."

The floods of June 25 ravaged large parts of Yorkshire and the South-West.

In Hull alone – the worst hit city in the country – more than 20,000 people in more than 8,600 households were affected, alongside scores of businesses.

A total of 63 households are still in temporary accommodation, three years after the devastating floods.