From visiting all of the major health institutions in the island to allowing a reader woman in St Thomas to break two bottles of red stripe beer over her head, Stephanie Grant* has exhausted all her options trying to figure out what is causing an extraordinary stiffness in her legs which has recently rendered her bedridden.

The mystery illness has kept the mother of two girls out work for the past three months, and now she worrying how she will be able finance her seven-year-old daughter’s back-to-school preparations.

“I work as a nurse at hospital in Kingston,” Grant told THE STAR. “But since April my pay stop come and I practically used up all my savings trying to figure out what is wrong with me.”

According to Grant, it all started last year while she was at work. She said she had to use the rails in order to get up and down the staircase, and was unable to walk by herself.

She said as the condition got worse, she started visiting various doctors, but none was able to figure out what was causing her illness.

“I visited KPH (Kingston Public Hospital) and the doctor said that she can’t help me because my situation is very rare and they don’t have any space to keep me there,” Grant said, adding that she also saw a neurologist at the University Hospital of the West Indies.

Prominent pastors

Grant told THE STAR that she also visited a number of herbalists and several prominent pastors, but nothing they recommended worked.

“I was beginning to get frustrated, and my brother was telling me that there is something about this house and me, and I should get out,” she said. “I took his advice and go to a reader woman in St Thomas.”

She continued: “When I go up there she throw a red cloth over my head and break two beer over my head. She also give me a bath.”

Neither the bath nor the bottles of beer seem to have relieved Grant of her misery as she still unable to move her legs.

Adamant that a reader woman might be able to comprehend the mystery, Grant made a visit to another reader woman in Portland.

“When this one start to work on me she break two beer over my head, and then she tek out an half inch nail out of my leg, and she tek out a key out of my belly,” Grant said, noting that the discovery was shocking.

When THE STAR visited Grant at her house in the Papine area, she was still bedridden. She said she should have returned to work on Friday, but she is unable to do so.

She is, therefore, as asking the public for assistance to help her prepare for daughter’s back-to-school. Persons wishing to help can contact Grant at 1-876-570-6832.

*Name changed by request