31 Dave suffered a stroke while playing football.  Sophie his wife wants to share their story to help raise funds for the new stroke unit at Frimley Park Hospital.

Read Sophie’s story:

In 2015, my husband aged 31 suffered a stroke while playing football.  A few weeks before that he was elbowed in the neck while playing football which caused the artery to tear in his neck.

Dave was rushed to hospital and had a helicopter on standby at Frimley as he was very poorly. Dave had the injection within the time limit which really saved him as a person but the stroke had affected his main brain stems so affected both sides of his body.

Our whole lives changed from that day.

We have 2 children and at the time where only 6 and 8. Dave spent six weeks in hospital and in that time I visited every day but I still had to work and be a mummy.

When Dave was able to move a bit more, it would’ve been really nice to of had somewhere for us to go together away from the ward.   Dave felt looked at in the cafe.  For him to go from a fully fit person to not being able to sit up, walk, talk or even eat was a massive shock. When we left hospital, he had 8 weeks of community care which was fantastic but myself and Dave could have done with some counselling and therapy as it was so hard in the early days accepting that he wouldn’t be the same again and what we had been through.

Dave has been very lucky, and 4 years on to look at him you wouldn’t know he was so poorly. His right vocal cord is paralysed, from his neck down on the left side he can’t feel hot, cold or pain and on the opposite side of his face, and he has a weakness in his right eye muscles and muscles down his left side.  Balance sometimes can cause issues and one of the biggest things he has struggled with is Chronic Fatigue Syndrome.

So May last year he ran his first fun run race and we did it as a family and raised over £300 for the stroke association and we have now both lost 4.5stone between us as I’ve had health problems as well so we have turned the negatives into positives and what it has done has made us stronger as a family.

Please help the hospital raise funds to give future stroke patients the counselling, space and therapy which is so needed as part of the treatment when you have a stroke.

Sophie and Dave Evans

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