Breakfast in bed, a bunch of daffodils and a handmade card. All mums deserve spoiling on Mother’s Day. But mum-of-four Vera Twomey has the best gift she could wish for – her 10-year-old daughter Ava is alive, happy and well, despite doctors predicting she might never see her third birthday.
When Vera fell pregnant soon after her honeymoon in 2009, she and her mechanic husband Paul were delighted. But after a textbook pregnancy and birth, their nightmare began in February 2010 when baby Ava, just four months old, suffered her first seizure. ‘She suddenly let out a loud breath, her eyes fixed in a stare, and her body violently contorted, jerking and twisting in pain,’ recalls Vera, who lives in Cork, Ireland. 'I’d never seen anything like