Hamilton mother fears daughter will develop AVCS [Video]

Teenager Jemima Thompson was given three years to live due to an abdominal condition – until she went to Germany and had a life-saving operation. Her younger sister Matilda died 11 years ago from what their mother Rachel Mckenna suspects was the same condition. Now, Mckenna fears for her youngest daughter, Clementine.

A Hamilton mother who has lost one daughter and saved another from what she believes was the same rare and debilitating condition now fears her third daughter may develop it.

Despite being raised in Rotorua, she says she may consider leaving New Zealand for a country with better care options if the public health system doesn’t change.

Rachel Mckenna’s 5-year-old daughter Clementine was recently diagnosed with Ehlers-Danlos syndrome (EDS).

Clementine’s symptoms of the genetic connective tissue disorder are not life-threatening, but Mckenna fears they could be if she developed a co-morbidity, abdominal vascular compression syndromes (AVCS).

Mckenna is …