Thank you for visiting my JustGiving page. Please read on to find out more about why the Stroke Association is important to me.

My mum, Kath, suffered her first stroke shortly after receiving her cancer diagnosis, at a point when she was otherwise feeling surprisingly well.  We were all completely caught out by this stroke – we had an idea in our minds of how her illness would progress, for example talking about chemotherapy and hoping this could slow down the cancer’s progress.  We hadn’t realised that pancreatic cancer can increase the risk of a person developing a blood clot, which can in turn cause a stroke.  At 62, my mum was relatively young to have a stroke, as most people who have them are over 65.

This first stroke was so mild that my mum put her symptoms down to the effects of a local anaesthetic she had been given at the dentist earlier that day, before receiving a stroke diagnosis several days later. Her second stroke came a little later on, leaving her unsteady on her feet, but able to return home from hospital to spend Christmas with the family.  Despite being on preventative medication, she had a third and final stroke in February. This was the most serious by far, and took away from her the two great pleasures of conversation and good food, as she was now unable to speak or eat. My mum died in the Stroke Unit of Glan Clwyd Hospital two weeks after this final stroke.   

Sadly my mum did not have the much-needed time to recover from her stroke; to go through rehabilitation and regain her speech and other lost abilities.  For those people who do have that valuable time ahead of them, the Stroke Association raises awareness and provides valuable support, information and resources to help this to happen.  The Stroke Association also funds research that aims to make stroke a preventable and treatable disease. 

 

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