Now 21, Sienna has never known a time when she has not been an unpaid carer.
From the tender age of just four years old, she has been helping look after her mum Lisa, who has severe epilepsy, as well as having bouts of depression and anxiety.
Sienna said: “I’ve got older sisters, but it got to the point where whenever my mum was unwell, I’d see her on the floor, having her seizures.
“At the start, it was more wondering what was going on because it’s not something everybody witnesses, but from such a young age I was having to remember my home address and my home phone number in case anything happened.
“We did have an epilepsy alarm, which had all the details, so all you had to do was press a button and then they’d send someone out. It was a lot of responsibility, but you don’t think it at the time. Because of looking after mum from such a young age, I just got used to it and assumed it’s what everyone did.”
Sienna was around eight years old when she realised she was a young carer after a support worker from regional youth outreach charity The Benjamin Foundation visited her home and invited her to join a local support group.
It was also around this time when she and her mum were lucky to survive a major car accident. Her mum was left with long-term concussion that still affects her today in addition to her other issues.
“With the massive impact of the hit to the head, mum nearly ended up in a coma,” said Sienna.
“When mum came out of hospital, she had to learn to walk and talk again. You could show her a selection of cards with different things on, and she would sit there for a long time and say ‘I don’t know what it is’ and get really frustrated.
“My mum’s still not completely the same today and any small thing can be a trigger. There was one time in a guy was whistling in the same aisle in Morrisons and my mum started got agitated and started shouting so my nan had to take her out of the shop.
“She doesn’t like it when people click their fingers, or even somebody eating a packet of crisps because of the crunching.”
By the time of this horrific road collision, Sienna had herself been diagnosed with epilepsy, with her own health issues making her caring role even harder to cope with.
She said: “Because I’d seen my mum have all these seizures and go through it, even though I was still so young, I understood what it was.
“Although I enjoyed education, school was difficult. A lot of people get to see you on the floor having seizures and in my first year at high school, there would be paramedics turning up most days to take me to hospital in an ambulance.
“I missed out on a lot of work and then once I got to Year 8, I led myself down a path where I didn’t know how to act around staff. I wouldn’t necessarily class myself as the naughty type, but there was a lot of anger and frustration and I think it just came out, which it shouldn’t have done.”
However, Sienna began attending Caring Together Charity’s Norfolk Young Carers Forum around this time, which she found hugely beneficial as a break from both her caring role and a rough time at school, and still goes along now as a young adult carer.
She said: “It was interesting to see what other people did care-wise, whether it was for parent or siblings and it was nice knowing that my voice is heard because I’ve had so many fantastic opportunities with this group.
“I’ve been on the radio and down to the House of Lords to speak about the charity, and I nearly went on This Morning, but unfortunately Prince Philip passed away, so that didn’t happen.
“I love Caring Together, I always have and I always will. I still come to the group, but I’m getting to the stage now where I want to do more. I want to be a role model for the younger ones.”
After leaving school, Sienna gained qualifications in health and social care at college and has worked as a healthcare assistant and a teaching assistant in a SEND school.
However, her health has deteriorated with more frequent seizures once more and she has unfortunately had to give up work for now.
She said: “At the moment, I’ve been in and out of hospital. I still support and help mum as much as she needs, but when going in and out of hospital and being physically and mentally drained, I do struggle.”
“Me and my mum make a good pair, don’t we!”, she jokes.
What cannot be doubted is the deep love Sienna and her mum share for one another.
Sienna said: “At times, she’ll say to me “I know you struggle” and I’m like “we both struggle”, but we both manage together. She looks after me, I look after her.
“The way I see it is my mum brought me up. She fed me and clothed me, so why aren’t I able to do the same for her?
“I’d move heaven and earth for her, I’d do absolutely anything. A lot of people say me and my mum are like an old married couple because of how we bicker.
“But even then, it’s not really bickering because we’ll both look at each other and start laughing.
“I’ll still go and lay on the sofa with my mum and give her a hug and she’ll look at me and say “you’re getting too big for this!”. I’m such a child at heart!
“It probably doesn’t help when I’m not overly well myself because they always say if you’re not able to somewhat look after yourself, then how can you expect to look after somebody else?
“But I think we just take each day as it comes, and we’re grateful that we’re both still here.”
