A MOTHER-of-two who survived major brain surgery is dedicating herself to help other patients suffering from the same rare condition.

Jan Harrington, 32, was told she would go blind and die without an operation after specialists at Newcastle General Hospital diagnosed a rare brain abnormality.

The former communications consultant from Cramlington, Northumberland, was referred to brain specialists after experiencing severe symptoms, including partial paralysis, severe head-aches and sight problems.

After brain scans, experts told her she had an arteriovenous malformation (AVM) of the brain. The rare congenital vascular disorder often kills patients without warning.

"In my case, I was very lucky because I got warning symptoms, which gave the doctors a chance," she said.

Before her operation - which involved temporarily lifting the top of her skull and removing tissue measuring 3cm across - Ms Harrington turned to the Internet to find out more about her condition and was shocked to find there was nothing available for UK patients.

"Most of the sites in America were memorial sights commemorating victims of AVM. It was all terribly negative, there was absolutely nothing positive for British patients to look at," she said.

The operation, which was carried out by leading expert Professor David Mendelow with the assistance of neuro-radiologist Dr Anil Gholkar, two years ago, was a great success.

"They did brilliantly. I was told that there was no guarantees," said Ms Harrington, who is married to Jim and has two children, James, nine, and Amy, five.

Although she still has some mobility and speech problems and has developed epilepsy, Ms Harrington has spent the past year creating a website for other AVM sufferers.

All the information has been checked by her doctors.

She chose The Northern Echo's Communigate website to launch her AVM Support UK website and within days was inundated with emails from sufferers across the world.

"In one day alone I received 150 hits, comments, messages and emails," said Ms Harrington.

"Throughout my illness the goal that kept me going was that I would change AVM awareness in the UK and thanks to Communigate, I am on the right road to achieving this one day."

* For details visit the website at: www.communigate.co.uk/ne/ avmsupportuk/