From hospital bed to dancing bride

Anne was married six weeks ago

Anne Wardle used to drive forklifts around a frozen food factory until crippling rheumatoid arthritis meant one day she could not get in her own car to drive to work.

She has spent the best part of a decade in severe pain and unable to move various limbs, with protracted periods in hospital up to three times a year.

"I tried everything, every drug that was available," she says, "but nothing worked. I couldn't work, I stopped even going out because I felt so conscious that I was holding my friends back."

And then in March this year Anne's doctors at the Freeman Hospital in Newcastle urged her to take part in a trial of a new generation "smart drug", MabThera.

The drug targets one of the key immune system cells involved in rheumatoid arthritis, relieving the pain and slowing down the deterioration.

"Everything has changed for me, since then. I am a different person. I got married six weeks ago, and I even managed to dance on my wedding night."

Seizing the moment

Anne was only 38 when she was first diagnosed with arthritis - a condition which affects the young as well as the old - and by the late 1990s it had progressed into severe rheumatoid arthritis.

She recalls clearly being carried up the stairs at the hospital just before her diagnosis, and being unable to move her head.

I'm just so glad that other people can now benefit in the way that I have Anne Wardle Arthritis drug gets NHS approval

"When they told me what it was, and that it was unlikely to get better, I just cried. I cried for a fortnight. I was completely distraught."

She had met her husband-to-be shortly before her condition deteriorated, and says his support was what carried her through the toughest period of her life, when treatment after treatment failed to significantly alleviate her symptoms.

"He's thrilled that we can start to lead a more normal life. We've just been on honeymoon to Cyprus, and while I was careful not to overdo, I was able to stroll around just like other people were doing.

"It's not a cure, I am aware of that. But for the time being, it's changed my life immeasurably, and I'm going to enjoy every moment.

"I'm just so glad that other people can now benefit in the way that I have."