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Video: Grace Etherington,
back dancing after rare illness

By Hayley Robinson

A young girl who suffered temporary paralysis after being
struck down by a rare illness is set to perform in a dance
spectacular.

Grace Etherington (pictured far left in the photograph below) will perform two routines with her dance colleagues from the Sittingbourne-based Kent School of Dance after it was selected to take part in the Young Performers' Variety Show at Her Majesty's Theatre in London.

Family and friends will be in the audience cheering Grace on
when the show takes place on May 23.

It is an achievement for the Highsted Grammar School pupil after she was struck down with Guillain-Barre syndrome in November last year.

The disease, which attacks and destroys the nervous system,
resulted in the 15-year-old being rushed from Medway Maritime
Hospital to a special children's unit at St Thomas' Hospital in
London.

She was put on a ventilator after the condition affected her
respiratory system, leaving her unable to breathe on her own. Grace
also suffered temporary paralysis.

Only one in 100,000 people get the disease and only one in a
million suffer such a severe attack.

After weeks on the ventilator and high doses of medication, she
began to make a recovery.

Mum Sharon said: "She's been practising like mad but it's
frustrating for her as she's not where she was up to. Although
she's doing well in herself, she's not 100 per cent.

"They've got her in a different outfit to the others and given
her a slightly different dance routine. About 10 of us are going up
to see the show."

On top of practising her dance routine, Grace has been revising
for 13 GCSEs.

She sits her first exam for biology on May 21, and her last exam
for sociology on June 25.

Sharon said: "She's been working really hard so we're keeping
our fingers crossed.

"We're all really proud of her and how well she is doing."