MEL Moon is a comedian with a special interest in assisted suicide. In fact, at 35, she’s Exit’s youngest member.

Some would describe her brand of comedy as black, gallows even. She would say it’s more about life, her life, because death stares her in the face every day and somehow she can see the funny side.

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After the birth of her second child in 2010, Mel, who comes from Nelson, contracted Polyglandular Failure, a rare incurable disease which shuts down the endocrine system and could kill her at any time. Medication keeps her alive.

“I don’t know how long the drugs will work,” she says. “It’s about keeping safe. If I get a cough or a cold or I have an argument with someone, or have too much stress my system can shut down.”

Her partner Kris, knows the danger signs and is on high alert. Her head goes back and her eyes start rolling.

“Sometimes at night I shake with fear, but you don’t want to burden anyone with that because they can’t cope with it or if you do they say ‘you’ll be all right’, but they don’t know that. Even the doctors don’t know that.

“Kris copes with it a lot better now. He was very angry at the beginning. He’s a fantastic dad and he’s very supportive. He’s everything to me.”

In the early days, the illness left Mel in such excruciating pain, her jaw locked and all her joints dislocated, that she wanted to take her own life, even though it would leave her two young sons, aged four and 10, without a mother.

“Dignitas wanted £10,000 to help me die. I didn’t have it. Plus who on earth will lend it to you? It’s not as if they’ll get it back.”

It was Mel’s mum, an A&E nurse at Burnley, who observed that her daughter was suffering from a lot more than the ME or Fibromyalgia that doctors claimed.

“When she saw me the colour drained from her face. I was full of fluid and I’d ballooned. She took me to the doctor and in the waiting room I put my head on her shoulder and said ‘Mum, I think I’m dying’ and she didn’t tell me I was stupid, she just put her arm around me and said ‘I’m going to try my best not to let anything happen to you’ and she turned her head away, but I knew she was crying.”

Mel had numerous tests which came back negative. Then she collapsed and finally a brain scan revealed growths.

“Those growths were affecting the signals in my body and those signals are the ones that keep you alive. I was shutting down. I was a new mum and all they wanted to do was diagnose me with depression. My GP kept sending me for tests, but they all came back negative. But I think he knew, that’s why he kept sending me back. My whole world was falling apart and everyone thought it was in my head. It was terrible.

“It was a young doctor who eventually diagnosed me. He was not long out of training and he’s still my consultant now.”

Thankfully, a diagnosis and medication gave her a new lease of life. So much so that she put together a comedy show, Sick Girl, which has just finished a stint at Edinburgh Festival where it received great reviews. The show was put together at short notice because Mel had been due to perform alongside pro-euthansia campaigner Philip Nitschke, but it didn’t work out due to “creative differences”.

Last week she was flown down to London to be interviewed for the Katie Hopkins show, following the acid-tongue presenter’s comments that euthanasia vans ought to be introduced for the elderly. But, Mel, a feisty bird by all accounts, was having none of it.

“She was actually really nice. I think it’s all an act with her. When the cameras weren’t rolling she was a different woman. It was hard to have a go, but I did have a bit of a dig. The way she was presenting it was making assisted suicide a circus and it stops it being taken seriously.

"Euthanasia vans may exist in Europe and it’s like a door-to-door service. We will never OK that here. The public would be terrified. In Europe they’re more relaxed about everything – sex, drugs and all that, but I don’t agree with the way they’re approaching this.”

Mel had a difficult childhood. She went to two schools, Fishermoor and St Hilda’s in Burnley. Ironically, she studied pre-medicine at Burnley College because she wanted to be a doctor. But she was put off when she came into contact with a patient suffering with diverticulitis who had a bowel obstruction.

“He vomited blood and faecal matter all over me. He died and I was absolutely destroyed. I was 19 and I couldn’t believe that someone could just die like that.”

So she gave up her dreams of being a doctor and became a Haven Mate for Haven holidays – “I was Roary the Tiger.”

- Mel Moon presents Sick Girl, Ace Centre, Nelson tonight.