A huge improvement in Fudge

I am so happy, for those who don't know, Fudge is my little long haired girl, she lost her front leg due 4 years ago. She has always been a nervous kitty, when we adopted her from the Cats protection leaue she was basically on death row as no one wanted her because she wouldn't stay in her pen when people looked at her, she would just dart off into the outside enclosure, I thought she was beautiful and when they got her into the inside bit she just cowered into a ball, she had been took of a man who had 60+ cats and had never had proper human contact. We took her home and she lived under a cupboard for about 3 weeks, only coming out for food and water at night when we were in bed. After about 3 months, the changes were amazing and she would come and let us pet her, then tragically she had the accident which led to her losing her leg. For the past 4 years she has basically lived under our bed and the same of coming out when we are all asleep for food and water and to use the tray.
The past 3 weeks or so every night when I go to bed she jumps on the bed and lets me cuddle her and give her belly rubs, she even let me cuddle her which is amazing but as soon as dh comes upstairs she is back off under the bed.
I have tried everything to calm her and make her more relaxed but nothing has worked, well for some reason this past week she has been coming down in the day!! She is still careful and hides under the kitchen table when people are around but she is down now more than she is up and tonight she came to me when I was filling the food bowl up, apart from her gettin on the bed with me at night if I walk near her she is off, so this is just huge and I am so happy. I don't understand why this has happened but I am so pleased and I hope she continues to improve, she's such a lovely cuddly cat and she deserves cuddles and belly rubs. As she is longhaired she really does need grooming but that is totally out of the question at the minute and she does take fantastic care of herself but I would love to dream that I maybe one day be able to brush her.xx

Thankyou, that means a lot.xx

She's been sat on the rug in the lounge all morning but when dh came down she's gone I will post some pics later. x

I'm not sure because when we got her the lady at the shelter told us that she's probably get on with my hubby more, she was in no way mistreated apparently the man looked after all the cats well and only rung the cats protection as he couldn't afford the vets bills anymore and he just had too many, because he had 60 cats many of them were feral like and were alot like Fudge, they hadn't really had any proper human contact, they let him keep 10 of them. All the others went to new homes quite quickly but Fudge was the most nervous and most people passed her by without a glance because she would just run and hide, I looked at so many cats and none of them felt right until I saw Fudge. I nearly had a persian and then at the last minute I changed my mind and said I wanted one more look, glad I did as she was due to be pts the next week.
I feel terrible that she broke her leg, I was a newish cat owner and they advised me outdoor cats were fine and she should be encouraged to go out, she broke her leg by jumping down and landing wrong off next doors garage as he used to feed cats on their his left over meats, he saw it happen and told me. I wish I had found this site before then and I wouldn't have let her out as I would have had more knowledge. Don't et me wrong my other kitties do go out but with supervision and they come in when I do and I would love Fudge to be able to do that in summer.x