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HEALTH kick: Taking up karate has helped Jessica Maitland, 14, overcome chronic fatigue syndrome
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Brave Jessica gives ‘yuppie flu’ ME the big chop
12/ 3/2008
KARATE kid Jessica Maitland loves nothing more than the odd dust-up against a black belt rival — but each day brings a fight of a different kind.
The teenager’s biggest battle comes against chronic fatigue syndrome — or ME — which she has suffered with for five years.
Once dubbed ‘yuppie flu’, its symptoms include exhaustion, unrefreshing sleep, muscle pain and poor concentration. It is estimated around 25,000 children suffer from ME in Britain.
But Jessica, 14, of Thorn Brook, Carrbrook is determined to beat it into submission — and has just returned from a martial arts competition in Poland where she scooped team silver and came fourth in the individual competition.
That success came despite her struggling to stay awake between tournament rounds.
Dad Andy said: "We were pleased with the medal, but even more so when you consider what she’s had to put up with — if anything, it just seems to make her focused.
"She has achieved all this against her doctors’ and consultants’ advice. They wanted her to stop training altogether but Jessica refused. As her parents we had to support her decision,
"It was only diagnosed two years ago but we think she’s had it four or five years. It manifests itself in certain ways: she gets run down, and suffers from stuff like tonsilitis which she’s had eight times last year.
"She is now at the latter end of the chronic fatigue but is still prone to relapses. She tends to sleep wherever she goes — even in the middle of a competition waiting for the next bout.
"The squad find it highly amusing, especially when she just wakes up and gets on with whatever she has to do."
Jessica, who trains at clubs in Mossley and Failsworth, brought home runner’s up spot in the ‘kumite’ sparring section. She followed her dad into the sport. Andy said: "She found my old trophies in the attic – because I used to do it years ago – and she asked me what they were."
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13/03/2008 at 04:07