TRIBUTES have been paid to a nurse who died after losing her two-year battle against a cruel and incurable wasting disease.

Teresa Newham was diagnosed with motor neurone disease in November 2014.

Her family first noticed something was wrong months earlier when she she started losing her speech.

Mum Molly said: "We were pretty sure something was going wrong in the summer but it wasn't diagnosed until November.

"She didn't tell anyone - she didn't want to spoil our Christmas."

"It was as if she was drunk. She started slurring and then she couldn't speak at all."

Teresa grew up in Skelmersdale Road, Clacton, and went to Bursville Junior School and Clacton County High School with older sisters Irena and Kathy.

She trained as a nurse at Colchester General Hospital.

In 1994, she joined an international relief effort in war-torn Rwanda, winning an award for her work. Her photo appeared in national and local newspapers feeding an orphaned baby.

She worked as a neo-natal nurse in Saudi Arabia, with street children in Tasmania and at Holloway Prison

She married husband Paul in April 2015 before her illness worsened.

The couple lived in Surbiton and Teresa worked with the homeless in London and at a clinic for people with sexually transmitted diseases.

Mrs Newham said: "Paul knew she had motor neurone disease when they got married.

"She was very thin at her wedding and had to depend more and more on Paul.

"He fulfilled his vows in sickness and in health. No one could have been kinder.

"She worked until she couldn't talk any more. Your speech one of the first things to go.

"Then she began to lose the use of one of her legs. She began walking with a limp and then started to lose her balance and falling over.

"It is a horrible progressive illness – one thing goes and then another.

"It is a very cruel disease because all they can do is keep you alive. She lost such a lot of weight that she became unrecognisable.

"Six months before she died she could only move one finger and tap out what she wanted on a tablet, but then that went and she was totally paralysed from head to foot."

In the end Teresa could only communicate by using her eyes to spell out words using a special screen.

"All she could do was move her eyes," said Mrs Newham, formerly of St Osyth, but now living in Mistley.

"I went to visit her. She knew I couldn't hear very well and she wanted Paul to put the subtitles on the TV. It took almost half an hour to spell out 'subtitles'.

"It was a laborious job and she hated it.

"Paul looked after her until the last three days of her life. She went into the Princess Alice Hospice three days before she died."

Teresa passed away just before Christmas, aged 49.

Her funeral service took place at Weeley Crematorium last month.

Her mother said: "Lots and lots of people paid tribute to her.

"She wanted us all to wear bright colours. She had a lilac coffin with a heart on top from her husband."

"As funerals go it was lovely. I read a poem and my other daughter Irena read the eulogy."

Teresa's ashes will be scattered in Abersoch, Wales, where her family used to go on holiday.

The family collected donations at her funeral for the Motor Neurone Disease Association and a neurology hospital in London.

"Motor neurone disease is one of the complaints doctors most fear telling patients they have because there is no cure at all," said Mrs Newham, whose late sister-in-law also died from the same illness.

"But Teresa has raised a lot of money for it, even after her death."

Sister Kathy said: "Teresa had enormous compassion for other people and led and incredibly full life.

"It is so cruel for someone who had given so much to lose their life at 49."

Irena said: "Everybody new Teresa, everybody loved Teresa.

"To me, she had it all. Pretty, popular, the apple of everyone's eye."

To donate visit mndassociation.org.