Mum suffers stroke at the Christmas dinner table and doesn't realise for days
A 22-year-old mum had no idea she'd suffered a stroke on Christmas Day until she was urged to see a doctor days later.
Casey Singleton, from Blackpool, was sat around the table with her family on 25 December when she suddenly saw her vision blur and felt like she was about to fall off her chair.
"I was losing my balance and going weak and blurry," Casey recalled.
The mum-of-two had previously experienced blurred vision on 22 December, just over a month after she suffered what doctors described as a 'major stroke' just days before her 22nd birthday.
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The ordeal began on 20 November, when Casey tried to take herself up to bed only to find that she was struggling to walk. She tried to crawl up the stairs, but fell back every time she did and was left lying on the floor downstairs.
The next day, her partner Jack noticed Casey was 'staring into space' and wasn't moving. He called an ambulance and Casey was rushed to hospital.
Looking back on the events, Casey thought only an hour had passed between her trying to get to bed and her arriving in hospital.
"In reality it was from 11pm to 9am the next day," she said. "In the morning, I thought I was talking normally and telling Jack to go to work."
Casey has no recollection of the events that took place over the next four days, but during that period she was moved from Blackpool Victoria Hospital to Royal Preston Hospital.
The couple were told stroke victims need to be operated on within four hours or it could be fatal for the patient. As hours had passed for Casey, surgeons refused to operate and instead doctors monitored the pressure on her brain.
Thankfully she was soon able to return home, where she focused on recuperating and looking after her and Jack's two children, Tommy, one and George, three.
"My two boys need their mum, I'm fighting for them," she said, adding: "I can't hold Tommy anymore though. I've got no feeling in my right arm and I get scared of holding him. His birthday was on December 10 too, whilst I was going through this."
When she began to experience blurred vision again a few days before Christmas, Jack and Casey put it down to the aftermath of the first stroke.
She continued on with the celebrations, and it wasn't until she went to see her physio a few days later that she learned she'd suffered another stroke.
"I see my physio every week and I sat with them a few days later and they just went 'woah woah, you need to go to the hospital', I didn't know," Casey said.
On 28 December, an MRI scan confirmed Casey had experienced a second stroke three days earlier. The stroke affected the left side of her brain, and she now has no feeling in the right side of her body.
She struggles to stand and has to use a wheelchair for moving long distances, otherwise she isn't allowed to leave her bed except to go to the toilet.
Doctors have no idea why Casey had a stroke at such a young age, having previously been perfectly healthy.
As a result of the ordeal, Jack has had to quit his job to care for Casey. However, he hasn't yet learned how to drive, meaning they have to rely on family members to travel to appointments.
Casey explained: "I need a lot of help, so it will really help if Jack gets driving. I don't like being poorly. I'm in these four walls all the time, I don't go outside."
The couple has explained the situation to their two children, but Casey feels like she has 'lost [her] bond with them' as they now rely on Jack and Casey's dad when they need help.
"I'm fighting for my kids and I'm praying that I can walk somehow," she said.
To help them adjust to their new lives, Casey and Jack have set up a Go Fund Me page which you can donate to here.
Emily Brown