Stroke After Care

My mum, Karen, was at work as a carer in Late June this year when she felt a bad pain in her neck and was light headed. She left work to go the to Louth hospital, who took her to Grimsby, Princess Diane hospital for a CT scan on her brain. They also did tests to see if she had diabetes, which she didn’t. She waited a few hours for the CT scan to come back, which then the doctor told her she is “clear” from any bleeds on the brain. Mum then had two weeks off work to recovery from the ever lasting pain she was in with massive debilitating headaches. On the 8th July 2019, she was at home with my 14 year old brother, Leo, who was playing video games when she shouted for him to come down stairs. Then she got up to hold onto the table and then fell unconscious mumbling “I think I’m having a stroke call an ambulance” and she blacked out. Leo called an ambulance and bravely, he had her in the recovery position while he waited a whole hour for the ambulance to arrive. When the ambulance arrived she was still unconscious however, when she got into the ambulance she gasped for gas and air.Leo and the paramedics knew she was in excruciating pain on the way to Grimsby hospital and they tried to keep her as calm as possible. She was then left in the A and E department with Leo for a few hours without much attention being brought to her until she had a seizure in the waiting area. It was only then that staff rushed to her attention and she was found to have a severe brain bleed. She was heavily sedated and kept alive on life support equipment for four days at Hull Royal Infirmary. She underwent two major neurological invasive procedures, she is on lifelong medication and had double vision as one of optic nerves has been affected by the procedures. It is heartbreaking to see her battered and exhausted but we are so happy she is alive. The doctors said with most brain bleeds of this severity the patients don’t usually make it to hospital alive. My Mum was in excruciating pain. She was in hospital for almost 7 weeks where she looks at four walls 24 hours a day, helplessly. She had very few visitors because most of the family live nearly 200 miles away. We hope that now she’s out of hospital that a lot more familiar faces can visit her.My mum had lived her life helping others - most recently as a carer. She lost two and a half stone while in hospital and is physically, emotionally and financially exhausted. As she starts on this road to recovery, the biggest challenge she has faced in her life, we want her to be comfortable and as I’m at college and my brother is at school we can’t get jobs and earn money to help her yet. Please can any family, friends and colleagues of the family help by making a donation to ensure her recovery is as peaceful and calm as it can be. Even by donating a small amount it could help her enormously on the road to recovery.Anything you can give to support us is hugely appreciated. Thank you so much for anything you can do to help from Alex, Leo, Olivia and the rest of the family.