Created: 9/18/2009 10:08:11 PM 
Winston-Salem, NC -- A 600-pound woman is fighting for her life from a hospital bed and desperately needs help raising money to get the help she needs.
We first told you about 47-year-old Sharon Purcell on Wednesday. She's been turned down by hundreds of rehabilitation centers because she's too large, but WFMY News 2's Ashley Smith sat down with Sharon again today. Purcell's family found a clinic in Illinois that will help, but that move requires a special ambulance that costs 6500 dollars. If they can't come up with 3250 dollars by Monday, Purcell will lose her spot.
"It's weird that 100 pounds goes to 2, 2 goes to 3, 4. I always wear a loose fitting shirt or something anyway, so the pounds didn't seem to amount up to me," said Sharon Purcell when she explains her weight gain. She said she didn't realize until she got to the hospital her body had grown to 623 pounds, "It was shattering. You know, you see people on tv and you think, 'God, how'd they get that way?' and then all of a sudden, you realize you are one of those people."
Purcell compares her relationship with food to that of an alcoholic or a smoker. And food left her body at such a size, her legs couldn't hold her up. When she stopped walking three years ago, it was her family that facilitated her addiction. "We wanted to make her happy, but now we want her to live. We see what we did was wrong," said Elizabeth McLaurin, her daughter.
McLaurin explained the three years of not moving created the health problems, pneumonia and kidney failure, that landed her in the hospital.
Now, Purcell has a second chance. A weight rehabilitation center in Rock Island, Illinois is ready to help. Unfortunately, because it is out of state, she needs to cover the ambulance fee out of pocket. "If it doesn't come by Monday, they could give her bed to someone else, and then we are back to square one looking for another place," said McLaurin.
Going home means sitting still, and sitting still puts her in the vicious cycle of her body breaking down all over again. "More or less to me, that would be death. Because in the long run, it is. It would be a slow death," said Purcell.
"I need to know that I can start right. I can get these eating habits and them [her family] on the right track and together we can all work it out and be happy in Illinois," said Purcell.
If you would like to help Sharon Purcell reserve her spot in Illinois, you can donate to the "Sharon Gardner Purcell Trust Fund" at any Wachovia Bank.
