Mum’s terror as daughter spent her 18th in intensive care after tumour made her act ‘possessed’

Shockingly, Aimee’s growth had teeth and hair – and left her suffering a life-threatening brain illness.

A mum has told how her daughter developed an ovarian tumour with teeth and hair – which made her act like she was “possessed.”

Aimee Sage from Ashford in Kent marked her 18th birthday in intensive care after suffering a life-threatening brain illness.

At first her mum Elaine Sage, 39, thought the teenager had a viral infection when her temperate soared, but she was soon screaming and telling her family she desperately needed to plan her own funeral.

Aimee in a coma on her 18th birthday (Collect/PA Real Life)

After scans, doctors discovered a tangerine-sized tumour on Aimee’s ovary – a rare form which contained teeth, hair and brain cells.

Even worse, an infection caused by the growth was making her immune system attack her brain, completely changing her personality.

Elaine said: “It was like having a different daughter. She would be writing in thin air with her finger in a daze one moment, then hysterically screaming and jumping on the bed the next.”

Aimee before she developed encephalitis (Collect/PA Real Life)

She continued: “It was like a scene out of the horror film The Exorcist, it was like she was possessed.

“She even tried to escape from hospital because she was sure she was being threatened and didn’t feel safe.

“It broke me as she is the most kind and gentle girl, but to see her like that, in that state, was just so awful for all of us.”

Elaine's diary entry on Aimee's 18th birthday (Collect/PA Real Life)

Childcare student Aimee, who lives with her Tesco online shopper mum, printer dad Lee Sage, 39, and younger siblings student Demi, 20, and Harrison, eight, first started suffering a sore throat on May 27 this year.

By the next morning, she had a 39C temperature, had started being sick and her blood pressure was through the roof.

Thinking it was a viral infection, Elaine nursed her daughter in bed and hoped she would soon recover.

L-R Lee, Aimee, Harrison, before Aimee's illness (Collect/PA Real Life)

But in the afternoon Aimee’s behaviour began to change for the worse.

“She kept telling me she didn’t understand, when I was trying to tell her simple things like where she might start looking for a new job when she felt better,” Elaine said.

“At first I thought she was just being grumpy, a typical teenager, disinterested in what her mum was saying.”

Aimee with L-R sister Demi, Harrison and family friend Teresa (Collect/PA Real Life)

But that evening, Aimee became erratic and angry.

Elaine recalled. “She was pacing around her bedroom with a hairbrush in her hand asking, ‘Where’s Dad?’

“Then she said she didn’t feel right and that she should be planning her funeral. I was terrified. I tried to calm her down but nothing seemed to work.”

She continued: “I called Lee who was on a late shift at work. He asked a family friend to come over and when they did they were also so shocked at how frantic Aimee was.

“That’s when I realised I needed to call an ambulance.”

Walking around her bedroom, Aimee started packing a bag full of random items like her football trophies.

When the ambulance arrived, paramedics said she was having a psychiatric episode and took her to Kent’s William Harvey Hospital.

Elaine said: “She was shouting and screaming but moments later said, ‘I’m fine… I feel fresh’. As her mum, I knew she wasn’t right.”

After three days of tests and monitoring, doctors transferred Aimee to the neurology department of Kent and Canterbury Hospital in Canterbury.

L-R Elaine, Harrison, Aimee and Lee before Aimee became ill (Collect/PA Real Life)

Meanwhile doctors carried out blood tests and full body scans to try and get to the bottom of Aimee’s condition.

Then, after 10 days, medics said they had found an ultra-rare tumour on her right ovary which might provide the answers for her drastic behaviour change.

Called a teratoma germ cell tumour, not only did it have teeth, hair and brain cells – it is also believed to produce an antibody to the NMDA receptor, which helps control a person’s thoughts, mood and movements.

Dad Lee with Aimee in a coma (Collect/PA Real Life)

Tests showed Aimee had the antibody in her blood and her strange behaviour was being caused by the resultant condition, anti-NMDAR encephalitis.

Effectively, her immune system was attacking her brain.

The illness causes psychiatric symptoms such as seizures, confusion and memory loss as well as bizarre and often disturbing behaviours such as seeing things which aren’t there, developing strange beliefs or appearing agitated.

Because of the severity of her behaviour, Aimee was put into an induced coma on June 15.

Aimee with brother Harrison now (Collect/PA Real Life)

Four days later, she had the tumour in her right ovary and fallopian tubes removed in a three-hour operation at The Queen Mother Hospital in Margate, where she had been transferred for the surgery.

Writing in the diary she kept throughout Aimee’s ordeal, Elaine described the growth as looking like a “hairy sea shell”.

Drawing a sketch because she was not allowed to take a photo, Elaine illustrated black hair poking out at the top, with teeth beneath the surface.

Unconscious for 12 days in total, Aimee’s terrified family kept a vigil at her bedside.

Elaine's diary entry with a sketch of the tumour with teeth and hair (Collect/PA Real Life)

Then on June 27 – the day before her big birthday – Aimee was brought out of her coma, still confused and disturbed.

And on June 28, when most teenagers would be having their first legal alcoholic drink, Aimee was in no state to celebrate turning 18.

Instead, she was drowsy and barely aware of where she was.

After having a tracheostomy, where an opening is created at the front of the neck so a tube can be inserted into the windpipe, Aimee was wired to a ventilator and several drips.

Harrison and Aimee holding hands (Collect/PA Real Life)

“She doesn’t remember any of it,” Elaine said.

“Most 18-year-olds can’t recall their 18th because they drank too much, but she won’t remember it because she was so seriously ill. I was sat there crying, thinking she was brain-dead.

“But I still wanted her to have a special day. So we got balloons and presents to make it feel like a proper party. I felt like everything was being ripped away from her.”

Aimee playing football aged 4 (Collect/PA Real Life)

After her birthday though, Aimee slowly made a recovery and nine weeks after first falling ill, on July 26 she was discharged from hospital.

Since then, she’s had to learn to walk again probably because of muscle wastage, and still can’t remember her ordeal – but Aimee is determined to get back to her old self again.

Her mum said: “The last thing Aimee remembers is going to the doctors, but everything after that is very vague. Now she wants to be like every other 18-year-old again. She was a really good football player, so is keen to be get back on the pitch again. I felt like we’d lost our daughter and I couldn’t be prouder of the recovery she has made.”

DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) — Stung by paying billions of dollars for settlements and trials, chemical giant Bayer has been lobbying lawmakers in three states to pass bills providing it a legal shield from lawsuits that claim its popular weedkiller Roundup causes cancer.

Nearly identical bills introduced in Iowa, Missouri and Idaho this year — with wording supplied by Bayer — would protect pesticide companies from claims they failed to warn that their product causes cancer, if their labels otherwise complied with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s regulations.

But legal experts warn the legislation could have broader consequences — extending to any product liability claim or, in Iowa’s case, providing immunity from lawsuits of any kind. Critics say it could spread nationwide.

"It’s just not good government to give a company immunity for things that they’re not telling their consumers,” said Matt Clement, a Jefferson City, Missouri, attorney who represents people suing Bayer. “If they’re successful in getting this passed in Missouri, I think they’ll be trying to do this all over the country.”

Bayer described the legislation as one strategy to address the “headwinds” it faces. About 167,000 legal claims against Bayer assert Roundup causes a cancer called non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma, which Bayer disputes. The company has won some cases, settled many others but also has suffered several losses in which juries awarded huge initial judgments. It has paid about $10 billion while thousands of claims linger in court.

Though some studies associate Roundup's key ingredient with cancer, the EPA has regularly concluded it is not likely to be carcinogenic to humans when used as directed.

The costs of “defending a safe, approved product” are unsustainable, said Jess Christiansen, head of communications for Bayer's crop science division.

The legislation was introduced in targeted states pivotal to Bayer's Roundup operations and is at a different stage in each. It passed the Iowa Senate, is awaiting debate in the Missouri House and was defeated in Idaho, where this year's legislative session ended.

Farmers overwhelmingly rely on Roundup, which was introduced 50 years ago as a more efficient way to control weeds and reduce tilling and soil erosion. For crops like corn, soybeans and cotton, it’s designed to work with genetically modified seeds that resist Roundup’s deadly effect.

Missouri state Rep. Dane Diehl, a farmer who worked with Bayer to sponsor the legislation, cited concerns that costly lawsuits could force Bayer to pull Roundup from the U.S. market, leaving farmers to depend on alternative chemicals from China.

“This product, ultimately, is a tool that we need," said Diehl, a Republican.

Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds, a Republican, said in an email the legislation maintains the integrity of the regulatory process and, without it, “Iowa risks losing hundreds of jobs” in Muscatine, an eastern Iowa city where Roundup is mostly produced.

The Associated Press is seeking public records on Bayer’s communications with governor's offices in Iowa, Missouri and Idaho.

Bayer, like other companies, hires lobbyists in states to advocate for its interests. The company backs this legislation in the states where “we have a big, direct economic impact,” Christiansen said.

Roundup’s key ingredient, glyphosate, is derived from phosphate mined in Idaho. And St. Louis is the headquarters of its North America crop science division, acquired in its 2018 purchase of Monsanto. Because of that, many of the lawsuits are filed in Missouri.

The five lobbyists registered for Bayer in Iowa and three in Idaho is largely consistent with recent years, but the number working in Missouri this year ballooned from four to nine. Lobbyist expenditures exceeded $8,000 in Idaho this year; similar information was not available in Iowa or Missouri.

Led by Bayer, a coalition of agricultural organizations called Modern Ag Alliance also is spending tens of thousands of dollars on radio and print advertisements claiming that trial lawyers and litigation threaten the availability of glyphosate.

On its website, the group asserts that at risk are 500 jobs connected to glyphosate production in Iowa, and 800 jobs in Idaho.

Bayer stopped short of threatening closures. The Iowa facilities, including in Muscatine, “are very critical facilities to our business, so we'll remain at some sort of support level,” Christiansen said.

At issue in the lawsuits and legislation is how Bayer – and any other pesticide company — communicates with consumers about the safety of its products.

Companies are required to register products with the EPA, which evaluates — and then reevaluates every 15 years — a pesticide and its label. The EPA reiterated in 2020 that glyphosate used as directed posed no health risks to humans. But a federal appeals court panel in 2022 ruled that decision “was not supported by substantial evidence” and ordered the EPA to review further.

The debate over glyphosate escalated when a 2015 report by the International Agency for Research on Cancer, part of the World Health Organization, said it's “probably carcinogenic to humans" based on “limited” evidence of cancer in people and “sufficient” evidence in study animals.

Based on that international report, California sought to add a cancer warning label to products containing glyphosate. But a federal appeals court ruled against California last November, concluding such a warning wasn't factual.

Christiansen emphasized that many regulatory agencies worldwide agree with the EPA and insisted Bayer has to stick to EPA labeling to ensure it isn't providing false or misleading information. She added that the company is transparent in the information it does provide.

Critics of the legislation aren't convinced, citing examples such as opioids and asbestos that had been deemed safe for use as directed — until they weren't.

There also are concerns that the legislation could stifle any product liability claim since most rely on the argument that a company failed to warn, said Andrew Mertens, executive director of the Iowa Association for Justice, an organization for trial lawyers.

Jonathan Cardi, a product liability and torts expert at Wake Forest University School of Law, also said a strict reading of the Iowa legislation extends beyond liability claims, and “the way it’s drafted makes it interpretable to mean nobody could bring any suit.”

In lobbying lawmakers and in speaking with the AP, Bayer representatives disputed that the legislation would cut off other legal actions. Several legal experts said the legislation is unlikely to affect the 18,000 lawsuits already pending in Missouri’s capital of Jefferson City, and wouldn’t prevent claims in states that don’t adopt similar legislation.

In Idaho, the Republican-led Senate narrowly defeated the bill amid concerns about relying on federal agencies' safety standards and limiting the ability of harmed individuals to sue.

John Gilbert, who farms in Iowa Falls, Iowa, with limited use of Roundup, called Republicans hypocritical for attempting to protect corporate interests after campaigning on standing up for Iowans.

The bill “invites a lot of reckless disregard," said Gilbert, who is on the board for the Iowa Farmers Union. “No amount of perfume’s gonna make it anything but a skunk."

Lieb reported from Jefferson City, Missouri.

FILE - Soybeans are seen in a field on a farm, Friday, Sept. 2, 2016, in Iowa. The maker of a popular weedkiller is turning to lawmakers in key states to try to squelch legal claims that it failed to warn about cancer risks. (AP Photo/Charlie Neibergall, File)

FILE - The Bayer AG corporate logo is displayed on a building of the German drug and chemicals company in Berlin, Monday, May 23, 2016. Bayer, the maker of a popular weedkiller, is turning to lawmakers in key states to try to squelch legal claims that it failed to warn about cancer risks. Bayer disputes such claims but already has paid about $10 billion to resolve them. (AP Photo/Markus Schreiber, File)

FILE - Phosphate ore is dug up and transported from Monsanto Company's South Rasmussen Mine site near Soda Springs, Idaho, July 16, 2009. Bayer acquired Monsanto in 2018. Bayer, the maker of a popular weedkiller, is turning to lawmakers in key states to try to squelch legal claims that it failed to warn about cancer risks. The company disputes such claims. A key ingredient of the weedkiller, glyphosate, is derived from phosphate mined in Idaho. (Bill Schaefer/The Idaho State Journal via AP, File)

FILE - Containers of Roundup are displayed on a store shelf in San Francisco, Feb. 24, 2019. Thousands of legal claims against drug and chemicals company Bayer assert Roundup causes a cancer called non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma, which Bayer disputes. (AP Photo/Haven Daley, File)

FILE - A soybean field is sprayed in Iowa, July 11, 2013. The maker of a popular weedkiller is turning to lawmakers in key states to try to squelch legal claims that it failed to warn about cancer risks. (AP Photo/Charlie Neibergall, File)