A bed-bound woman whose brain is 'slipping from her skull' is desperately trying to raise £300,000 to pay for life-saving surgery abroad.
Sarah Jackson, 30, had just realised her dream of moving to Australia in 2013 when she became struck with such severe vertigo she could barely stand.
After returning to her native Essex, the hairdresser was diagnosed with chiari malformation, which causes the brain tissue to extend into the spinal canal.
Ms Jackson now lives in 'excruciating pain' and only leaves the house for medical appointments in a wheelchair.
She feels she is in a race against time to raise enough money to go to the US for a series of life-saving operations
Ms Jackson claims medics in the UK - both in the NHS and private hospitals - refuse to operate due to the surgery being 'too risky'.
Sarah Jackson - whose brain is 'slipping from her skull' - is desperately raising £300,000 to pay for life-saving surgery abroad. The hairdresser is pictured left at Moto GP before she became unwell. Pictured right recently, she is virtually bed-bound and suffers 'excruciating pain'
Ms Jackson had not been living in Brisbane long when she started to feel unwell.
'About four months after arriving, all of a sudden I started to feel vertigo and I couldn't really stand anymore without feeling very faint,' she said.
'I had a lot of neck pain. I just didn't feel right. I had to stop working because obviously as a hairdresser you've got to stand.'
Her symptoms became so severe she was eventually forced to move back in with her parents in the village of Eight Ash Green, with her mother Julie, 54, now being her full-time carer.
'I was just about to get sponsorship to stay out there,' she said. 'It was a life-long dream to live in Australia, so it was absolutely devastating.
'Getting on that plane back was just awful.'
Ms Jackson's father John, 58 - a builder - is reportedly working seven days a week to support his family.
Ms Jackson (pictured before she became unwell in Australia) had only been living in Brisbane four months when she developed such severe vertigo she could barely stand
Forced to return home to her parents' house in the village of Eight Ash Green, Essex, Ms Jackson only leaves the house - in a wheelchair - to attend medical appointments
Ms Jackson first became ill in 2016 when she was diagnosed with postural tachycardia syndrome (PoTS) - an abnormal increase in heart rate that occurs after sitting up or standing.
'I couldn't really even stand up for long enough to make a cup of tea,' Ms Jackson said.
That same year she was diagnosed with Lyme disease and had open heart surgery.
In July 2017 'a big seizure caused massive damage, leaving her basically bed bound, [and] needing speech and occupational therapy,' she wrote on her GoFundMe page.
After being diagnosed with chiari malformation, she discovered she had the related condition Ehlers-Danlos syndrome (EDS) - which causes tissues to weaken and also affects Ms Jackson's mother.
As if that was not enough, Ms Jackson was later diagnosed with craniocervical instability - deformation of the
