Laura's Stroke Journey - Learning to Walk Again

Hi, my name is Katherine and I'm organising this GoFundme page for my dear friend Laura (Lewis, nee Sweeney). You may know her as Loopy, or Loops, Sween, Lor, Lo, Flora, Laura....

On Sunday 6th August this year, with no warning, Laura had a severe stroke and life was changed forever at age 57.

She was rushed to A&E at Bath RUH Hospital where the doctors were unable to stop her brain bleeding. The decision was taken to get her to Southmead Hospital in Bristol as soon as possible, but the doctors were very clear that she might not survive the journey and to prepare for the worst.

Southmead has a specialist intensive care brain unit. The amazing surgeons took Laura into theatre immediately she arrived and after a 5 hour operation they had removed a 5cm square blood clot but were unable to operate on the bleed itself. It was so deep in the brain they feared they would do more damage.

Amazingly Laura survived the operation. Without giving you the blow-by-blow details of her 3 months in 3 different hospitals (including learning to swallow again so she can eat) she is finally back at home with Graham.

Always a fearless warrior, she is extraordinarily lucky to be alive, but the reality is that the stroke has left her with life changing brain injuries, including the loss of use of her left arm and left leg. But the good news is she's firing on all cylinders and taking no crap off anyone!! Go Laura!!!

Now she's home the hard work begins. Currently she cannot move from her bed or chair without a carer. This means that going to the loo, eating, drinking, washing, dressing (you get the picture) are all dependent on a carer.

Most importantly Laura needs physio to help her learn to walk again and (fingers crossed) gain some use of her left arm. The first 6 months are crucial to this process.

The amazing NHS provide some carer and physio support, but to get Laura the amount of physio she needs for the best chance of recovery, this will need to be topped up privately using a specialist neuro-physio. Many phone calls later we have found a specialist stroke physio based in Salisbury who can visit Laura at home 2 days a week to provide hourly sessions.

But, it costs money. £85+ an hour to be exact. This is over £700 per month, just for the extra physio. So, to help Laura and Graham with this financial burden, especially now that Laura's income has been lost, we'd like to try and crowdfund some of the additional costs.

Ideally we'd like to raise funds to cover the additional neuro-physio for the crucial 6 month period where she has the best chance of seeing some recovery.

Thank you for taking the time to read this and thank you for any help you can give, no matter how small, every little helps!

We'll post updates on Laura's progress over the coming months so you can see how she's doing.

And thanks to everyone for all their love and support this far!