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A nurse and model has revealed how she has been unable to eat or drink for four years after a car accident.
Steph Kelly, 27, from Sydney, was involved in a 2018 car accident that damaged her vagus nerve, which is responsible for regulating internal organ function.
Taking to TikTok to describe his condition, he said he has since suffered from gastroparesis and intestinal failure, meaning he hasn’t been able to “fully absorb” the foods he eats.
Gastroparesis prevents the food that enters her stomach from being digested, leaving her ‘very sick’.
Intestinal failure, meanwhile, means that whatever comes out of your stomach goes into your intestines, causing blockages.
Since his accident, he has been dependent on a medical technique called Total Parenteral Nutrition to survive.
Nurse Steph Kelly, 27, from Sydney, was involved in a 2018 car accident that damaged her vagus nerve, which is responsible for regulating internal organ function.
TPN is a formula that is fed through the bloodstream and gives it nutrients.
She said on TikTok: ‘Gastroparesis means that whatever I eat goes into my stomach doesn’t come out and makes me very sick.
And gut failure means that anything that comes out of my stomach and into my intestines causes blockages and doesn’t move and therefore isn’t absorbed.
‘It sounds crazy, but I actually eat and drink with my heart.
“The central line (also known as Hickman’s) is inserted under my skin and tunneled under my clavicle and then into a large vein that sits directly into my heart.”
She said Yahoo News Australia that TPN has ‘practically brought me back to life’.
‘I didn’t realize TPN would nourish me! I have a lot more energy, I can go out and do things, I’m not fatigued,” she said. “I’ve gained 10kg, which is great because I’m at a healthy weight now.
‘I can get married in June and hope to start a family with my fiancé Adam next year. I was able to walk at Australian Fashion Week in May last year and I think they will bring me back this year to walk.”
However, TPN treatment forces her to be hooked up to an IV drip for 16 hours a day and she is able to take it home with her.
“TPN is mainly used in hospitals, but I’m lucky to have it at home, six nights a week,” he added.
The method is also often “a last resort” and “carries many risks,” the doctors warned him.
Since his accident, he has been dependent on a medical technique called Total Parenteral Nutrition to survive.
The treatment has also left her susceptible to other illnesses and infections and revealed that she had three near-death experiences from sepsis in 2022, leaving her in hospital for 12 weeks.
“You can do everything right and then a little bug gets into your bloodstream,” he said. “I lost an organ because of it and I was in ICU for a while.”
Ms. Kelly said she still craves and eats for social reasons and uses a gastrostomy tube to satisfy her cravings, which drains her stomach.
“I don’t feel my hunger in the pit of my stomach, it’s kind of a mental yearning, like you’re having your period and you might actually go for some chocolate,” she said. ‘Or if Maccas comes out with a new article, I’ll want to try that.
‘There’s no point in eating vegetables and things like that because they won’t be absorbed, and junk food won’t give me high cholesterol.
“Because food just sits there, I can usually leave it for an hour or two, maybe even four hours tops, but eventually it will bloat me up.” And even if I drain it, I may still have pain and nausea because it will make my stomach very unhappy.