Mike Thomas - access speech therapy

Mike Thomas was our much loved postman before he had an accident and received life saving surgery.

Due to the multiple brain haemorrhages this has left him with severe chronic fluent aphasia.

His mobility and physical recovery has seen great improvement but the bleed has resulted in him having speech & language difficulties and currently unable to read or write.

For someone that just loved to chat this is incredibly frustrating for Mike , his wife Dawn and the rest of his family. He has been unable to work since the accident and Dawn has had to stop work to care for Mike.

Aphasia is the loss of the ability to find the words that you want to say in order to communicate. Mike knows what he wants to say but the words that come out do not reflect this, so communication can be incredibly difficult and frustrating. The language therapy can help to rebuild the neural pathways which were affected by the bleed.

His access to SALT (Speech and Language Therapy) funded by the NHS had ceased once discharged home but if Mike still had access to SALT there is a good chance his communication skills would continue to improve but without them this is much less likely.

Our goal is to raise funds so that Mike can access Speech and Language Therapy privately for a period of six months.

The initial assessment would cost £500 and two sessions a week would be £200. A total of £5300.

I know for sure that there are a lot of people in the village who miss Mike and his cheeky banter and would like to contribute to anything that could help his recovery. I do not know, but I would imagine the same could be said of his work colleagues and maybe other people that have been affected by his accident.

Please donate whatever you can afford however small, Mike knew so many people and I am sure lots of you would like to help us reach our initial goal. Every penny helps and could make such a difference to Mike if he can overcome his aphasia. Whatever you can afford would be appreciated and you can feel free to come back monthly to make a further donation if you can afford it.