SHE may put on a brave face but life is a living hell for former fun-loving beautician Kate Sell after she was paralysed in a freak accident in her home.

Kate lived life to the full until the horrific fall at her home in Chipping Sodbury last Father’s Day, which severed her spine.

She is now trapped not only inside her own body, but also in her new home in Yate which she can barely move around.

The 44-year-old, who was sleepwalking at the time of the accident, severed her spinal chord, fractured a vertebra and broke her wrist.

She is now paralysed from the chest down and takes 44 tablets a day to cope with constant pain in her upper body. She also suffers severe anxiety about being left on her own, is petrified of the dark and worries constantly about people’s reactions to her wheelchair.

“Unless there is some sort of miracle and someone comes up with a cure, I have got to live like this in a wheelchair for the next 50 years and that is horrific,” she told the Gazette.

“I haven’t accepted it. I can’t accept it and I don’t know that I ever will. I was angry for six months then I literally switched from anger to depression.

“I push myself to go out, but I really don’t want people to see me like this. I hate looking at my reflection and it is really hard to take care of yourself when you can’t reach anything and are largely incontinent.

“There is a real loss of dignity and it has really affected my mental health.”

She added: “Sometimes I think I should be dead. If I had died people would grieve and they would recover. To me this is prolonging the agony and I can’t bear thinking about what my family went through.”

Kate, who lived in a rented house in Hartley Close at the time of the fall, has now moved to a Merlin Housing Society bungalow in Lawns Road, Yate, which husband Kevin, 47, decorated to her taste before she came home after nine months in hospital in February.

Adaptations to the house are still needed to enable her to move between rooms and she has been put on a 14-week waiting list to see a psychologist.

Kate does have home care visits, but relies on Kevin, who has taken a year’s career break from the Ministry of Defence, to do everything for her.

The couple have tried to recreate some sense of normality and were looking forward to a day out but have just discovered Kate’s powered wheelchair will not fit on trains.

“I can’t go on buses and don’t have a car it will fit in so I am stuck in Yate,” she said.

“Yate is my life at the moment.”

Kevin said: “The amount of bureaucracy is incredible. We are constantly filling in forms and you have to fight for everything, you don’t get given anything.”

He said he had wanted to take Kate out for a day but the only means of transporting her and her wheelchair is by ambulance. 

“People ask me if she is going to get better,” Kevin added. “Normally you have an accident and you get better and although there is some very encouraging research, at the moment there is no cure for spinal chord injuries.”

The couple, who have been together for 14 years, said support from friends and family, including financial assistance from the Kate Sell Spinal Injury group set up last year, had helped enormously.

They said seeing Kate’s son Christopher, his partner Paris and their nine-month-old grandson Taiyen brought them joy. 

“As a nan I just want to spoil my grandson,” said Kate, who intends to start a blog about her experiences.

“The world needs to understand the full impact of a spinal injury. It isn’t just have a fall and you are paralysed, it is all the other things people don’t think of. 

“Before I was confident and would go out and do it all but now the mental side is the worst and the dark reality is that this is it now.”