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First-time mom paralysed – and alone – after giving birth

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PHOTO: Gallo/Getty Images
PHOTO: Gallo/Getty Images

A  mother who’s paralysed after giving birth to her first child says she’s going to have to raise her child by herself because her condition was “too much” for her partner to handle.

Sam Buhmer from Queensland, Australia was 37 weeks pregnant in June when one of her legs went numb while she was at home packing. It was followed by a sharp pain in her stomach.

She was rushed to hospital where her baby daughter, River, was successfully delivered, but afterwards doctors told her she’d never be able to walk again due to a rare condition called arteriovenous malformation (AVM), the Daily Mail reports.

“The worst sentence was, ‘You’re never going to walk again’,” Sam recalls. “My arms and a few abs are the only power that I’ve got in my entire body, that’s it.”

AVM occurs when a tangle of abnormal blood vessels get wrapped around the spine or spinal cord. Sam has been confined to a wheelchair since giving birth.

But she was in for another shock when the father of her daughter ended the relationship because he was “struggling to cope with her crippling condition”, the Daily Mail reports.

“I think this was all too much for him, it’s just going to be River and I tackling this together,” Sam said in an interview on TV channel 9News’ current affairs show.

In addition to having to adjust to being a single mom, Sam has to adjust to being in a wheelchair.

She and River have been in hospital since June but she says she’s determined to complete her rehab in time for Christmas.

“I push myself every single day, a little bit stronger because I want to get strong. I just desperately want to go home for Christmas,” she told 9News.

The young mother has been undergoing gruelling rehabilitation and up to 10 hours of physiotherapy a week.

A friend created a fundraising page to help get members of Sam’s family in Britain to Australia so she can have a support system.

“I’ve made this page in the hope that we can raise enough money to get some of Sam’s family over here from England and to ensure she gets all the care and support she needs whilst still being able to be with her baby girl,” the friend wrote on the page.

Sam says all she can do now is live with what she’s been dealt and try to make the best of her situation.

“I need to show River that no matter how tough a deal you get dealt, you’ve just got to dust yourself off and get on with it,” she told the Daily Mail.

Sources: Daily Mail, 9News, My Cause.  

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