Bring Paul home to his family after a bad stroke

In England, in 1996, my friend introduced me to his Aussie pal, Paul. I had a peculiar feeling I would marry this man one day, which, seven years later, I did. Blessed with three sons: Will (19), Tom (14) and Edwin (12), we had plans this year to celebrate our 20th wedding anniversary.

However, in May, as I was in England visiting family, and Paul was home in Australia with our boys, the unimaginable happened. Paul suffered a massive haemorrhagic stroke. I’m not sure how I managed to get through the flight home. Coming straight from airport to hospital and seeing my beloved Paul in an induced coma, on life support, took the breath from me. He’s 52 years old – the rock of our family, a deeply caring, highly intelligent, intuitive, independent man and a beautiful father – cherished in the community, and profoundly loved by his close-knit family.

Our boys had an excruciating 24 hours with Dad in ICU and Mum on a plane. Since then, they have had to adapt to Mum spending hours daily in hospital. In our son, Edwin’s words, ‘Home is no longer home without Dad. It just feels like Base Camp.’

The stroke has caused life-altering damage, leaving Paul unable to walk with loss of movement and sensation on his right side and speech impairment. His hospital journey has taken every ounce of grit in him to keep going. Finally, we have the chance to bring him home, but our house is inaccessible by wheelchair. We don’t have funds to cover urgent modifications required to allow him home, including building a disability bathroom, an entry ramp and widening doorways. We cannot get government funding for this and the alternative is to shunt him out into disability housing without his family – this would destroy him.

‘In sickness and in health’, we vowed. Paul is a shining light in our family’s life, and the boys and I are ever grateful we did not lose him. With your generous and life-giving help, Paul will be able to pursue a journey of healing from this devastating brain injury enfolded in the embrace of his family, who love him beyond words. Our family will hold each of you – known and unknown – in our hearts with gratitude always.

Our plea to you:

Disability bathroom : AUS $50,485

Ramp to enter the house: AUS $5,000

Widening doorways for wheelchair: AUS $12,297

Total: $67,782