Scott had a stroke in 2007 and spent two months in Intensive Care on a ventilator. He then spent a further year in a rehabilitation unit before he was able to go home.As a result of his stroke, Scott lost his vision. His parents, Nick and Jane recall their experiences from when they found out what had happened, through to supporting Scott’s recovery.

Scott: What was it like, caring for me in the early stages of my stroke?

Nick: The early stages was quite scary, because, you know, there were lots of monitors and tubes and, and that was a new experience for us. But gradually, as things went on, you came into a routine. So it was using the trachy thing, listening to the beep, beep beep of the monitors. And just, you know, moving into a daily task. Towards the end, there were some really scary moments through the whole phase, but then we went through to the recovery phase. And then that was a whole new thing to learn and be part of.

Scott: In terms of breaking the news to you; how was that process done?

Jane: They broke news to us in bits, I suppose. Because they didn’t know the full extent of it. I mean, originally, I had a phone call to say you’ve been brought into hospital, you’re unconscious. And they didn’t tell me then that you’d stopped breathing. And when we got to the hospital, we went into the room, they said that you’ve been found and you weren’t breathing. And they took us through to see you. And then I said, “my husband works abroad, what do I do now?” And they said, Well, you need to get him urgently. That was another scary thing.

Scott: Going on to the hospital phase, how did you find that experience in general?

Nick: I mean the initial stage, where you was in the critical care. You were in the care of the nurses and the consultants. So, all we could do was wait, and we made the waiting room almost like our home. And I think we were like long term residents there for a while. We would then just go from the waiting room to you sit by your side, and, and be there and hopefully, you know, we thought that perhaps you could hear us or whatever. But there wasn’t a lot we could do, but just wait. Then going into the recovery stage… Our day became very repetitive; same thing, same time, same place – everything become almost like robotic. And then one day we came in and the nurse said ask Scott, the question that you always ask him. And that question was, can you stick out your tongue? Because apparently that’s one of the tests that they use to help assess how cognitive people are. And I did that, and you just stuck out your tongue. And that was a lightbulb moment for us in terms of recovery. And so you then went to the next phase – Well, what is it? What now happens? Where will you go? What do you do? That type of thing. So there was there were two very distinct phases.

Scott: So moving then on to returning home. How was that process for you both? and that kind of adjustment phase?

Jane: We were lucky again because of your background in physio, you’d got the general knowledge and that was your part in it. You would try and organise things for the rehab and getting the OT visit. So I’d say you would need this, that and the other and they put all of it in place. And we just did that – it would be a new normal. And then we’d move on to the next day. We had your bed downstairs to start with. And then one day you decided you wanted to go upstairs, when you could cope with the stairs. And I had to go back to work two or three days a week, and that was a big thing – leaving you on your own. But fortunately, we could communicate by phone throughout the day, you had an alarm thing. So we just had to keep coping with a new normal as each stage went on.

Scott: So then, me returning to work. I went from living with you guys at home in Worcestershire, to then moving, leaving home to come and work in London, How was that process for you?

Nick: There were two elements. First of all, I was absolutely over the moon, that you were able then to go from home to, to a job because it was always my worry – what would you be able to do for the rest of your life? The difficult thing for me was when I would come down to visit with you, when I was leaving you there. From a caring point of view, I knew that you would be okay. And you would get on with things.

Jane: it was letting go of you again. You know, you’d grown up and you gradually let go. And then I had to go through that process again. It was difficult, but you you set yourself challenges, and you overcame them. And it was done in bite sized bits. But so when you had your own flat, that was another big step. It was like leaving you at uni again. And developing ways in which you could cook for yourself and things like that. So yeah, we’d be sorting that out – I’d quite often get a phone call: “Mum, can you help me do this?”, But you know, you overcame all those hurdles. And we’re very proud of you.