I was sitting in my halls of residence when I checked Life360. I noticed my mum driving along Harrogate Road towards Leeds. When I checked again later, she was at Leeds General Infirmary with my dad. Assuming it was a routine hospital appointment, I thought little of it.

As the day went on, they hadn’t moved. I went to bed that night still unaware that anything was wrong. When I woke the next morning, Mum was now at Harrogate Hospital. That was when confusion, and then panic, began to set in.

My sister rang me to say she was rushing home from Sheffield to visit Mum in hospital and asked if I wanted to come too. Without hesitation, and still not knowing what had happened, I said yes. Her boyfriend kindly drove to Leeds to collect her from the train station, then picked me up on the way back to Harrogate. The drive home was nerve‑racking, filled with fear and the sense that something was very wrong.

When we arrived, we went straight to the hospital ward, where we met dad, my grandma, and my brother. It was there that mum told my sister and I that the previous morning, 6th October 2024, she had suffered a stroke.

Hearing those words was gut‑wrenching. We were both in complete shock, overwhelmed by a kind of emotional numbness that made it hard to process what we were being told. Just five days later, mum was discharged from hospital and sent home with a bag of medication and a leaflet of information. This was the start of a long and uncertain recovery.

For mum, the past year has been filled with consultations, scans, and hospital visits. She feels fortunate not to have been left with any obvious physical impairments, but the psychological impact of her stroke has been far harder to navigate. Ongoing fatigue has been difficult to manage, alongside fears about vulnerability and how far she dares to travel in case of recurrence. Following her stroke, mum also developed health anxiety. Any minor symptom, from a tingling arm to a racing heart, prompted the fearful question “Is it happening again?”

For me, 2025 has been a year lived under the shadow of fear that mum could have another stroke. That fear has left me persistently anxious, rarely able to fully switch off with the worry never far from my mind. Waiting for medical results has felt all‑consuming, with hope for good news sitting alongside the constant worry of bad outcomes. Despite this, watching mum put on a brave face for all of us has been truly inspiring. Earlier last year, she even set aside her own medical concerns to help care for my dying grandad — something I find incredibly heartening.

To this day, despite the appointments, the cause of mum’s stroke remains unknown. Living with that uncertainty has been incredibly difficult, and much of her recovery has felt profoundly lonely, shaped by fears and challenges that are often invisible to others.

The support of the Stroke Association has been invaluable throughout this journey. Out of the blue, a support coordinator from the charity made contact with mum and offered to check in with her each month. She listened to mum's concerns, and directed her towards online resources, helping mum feel understood, reassured, and less alone at a time when isolation could easily have taken hold.

That is why, this May, I will be running the Rob Burrow Leeds Marathon to raise vital funds for the Stroke Association. Seeing first‑hand how lonely and overwhelming stroke recovery can be has shown me just how important their work is. Their support has made a real difference to mum, and by fundraising, I hope to help ensure that others facing the challenges of a stroke receive the same care, understanding, and support.