“Having a stroke has given me a purpose I didn’t have before.”
This Brain Injury Awareness Week (19 – 25 May), one former Walkergate Park patient shares her story.
Kat Dobie from Chester-le-Street was 38 when she had a stroke, just days after giving birth to her son.
After what her and husband Chris described as a clockwork pregnancy, the birth was more complicated.
Kat had been suffering from split pelvis disorder and thought enough was enough, the baby needed to come.
Chris describes going to see the consultant on the maternity ward.
“We were told to come back the next day for Kat to be induced. We went in on the Sunday thinking ‘great, we’ll have a baby by tonight’.”
Days passed and nothing happened.
Kat was told to push twice between her contractions but after two hours there was still no progress. A consultant advised the midwife to keep pushing for another half an hour but still nothing.
Three days and two epidurals later, Kat gave birth to baby boy Teddy.
On Christmas Day 2017, they went to Framwellgate Clinic for Teddy’s five-day check-up. Kat said she had a headache and was told to go to the GP in a few days when they reopened. On Boxing Day night, she was blue lighted to Durham Hospital after having a stroke.
Chris adds: “I thought she was just exhausted but turns out she had a bleed on the brain.”
Kat was then sent to the Royal Victoria Infirmary (RVI) in Newcastle for surgery.
“Two or three days after the surgery, I took Teddy to the hospital to see Kat,” Chris said.
“She was out of it and her observations had been really high. As soon as Teddy was there, everything normalised. It was like she knew he was there.”
Kat was then sent to Bishop Auckland Hospital’s stroke ward. Kat recalls her only memory of being there was that the windows were too high to look out of and she felt very alone as she couldn’t communicate.
Days later, she was offered a place at Walkergate Park. Part of Cumbria, Northumberland, Tyne and Wear NHS Foundation Trust (CNTW), Walkergate Park provides services for people with a disability caused by injury or disease affecting the brain, spinal cord or muscles.
Kat admits coming to the hospital was hard. “I hadn’t accepted I’d had a stroke. I thought I’d be at Walkergate Park for two weeks and then would be able to go home and carry on with life.”
In the end, she was there for six months. Chris only missed one day of visiting during that time because of snow.
When Kat arrived, she couldn’t walk, couldn’t talk and had to eat a special diet.
One of her highlights was being able to eat again and going to the hospital café for tuna sandwiches and bacon sandwiches. Another highlight was having a room with windows looking out over the trees and garden.
Whilst at Walkergate Park, Kat had a number of different therapies including speech and language and physio.
“I had a therapy timetable so was busy on weekdays,” she says. “But I struggled on weekends because there was too much time to think and I wasn’t ready to talk about the stroke.
“Walkergate Park was magnificent but I didn’t want to be there.”
Nursing assistant Tracy Burns helped look after Kat.
“Kat was a very different patient for us,” she said. “We have patients who have had a stroke all the time but Kat’s circumstances were so different, to be so young and to have just had a baby.”
Chris and baby Teddy spent a lot of time on the ward and even had health visitors come to the hospital for Teddy’s health checks to make it easier for the family.
Tracy remembers when Kat started to show signs of recovery. “I knew she was improving when she said she wanted her hair dyed. The cleaners were furious because we turned the floor red!
“Seeing Kat go from what she was like when she came in to becoming herself and becoming a mam was lovely to see.”
Kat came home in June 2018.
She said: “I sat in the ambulance outside for ages thinking ‘I don’t know if I can do this’. Seeing the house brought back memories and reminded me that things were so different now.
“Last time I’d been home, I had gone to have a baby. I’d planned to go to all these baby and toddler groups and none of that had happened.”
Chris had made modifications to their home including adding a stair lift and downstairs wet room.
On returning home, Kat had a care package which involved carers coming to the house four times a day.
She said: “They came in at 6am on the first day and again at 6pm to put me to bed. I thought I can’t do this; we’ll do it ourselves.”
Chris became Kat’s full-time carer alongside looking after six-month-old Teddy.
“Everyone at the time said I don’t know how you’re doing it, but you do. You just get on with it,” he said.
Kat had a range of therapies at home and in hospital and was slowly starting to recover.
The couple married on 27 December 2020, after Chris proposed to Kat in hospital. They chose this date to marry as it was the anniversary of her bleed on the brain, wanting to turn a bad memory into a positive one.
Because it was during the pandemic they only had five guests and surprised their friends by streaming it on Facebook Live.
Seven years on from the stroke, life is looking more positive.
Teddy is now seven and Kat is a trustee for the North East Trust for Aphasia (NETA).
She said: “Before, I was working a mundane job. It paid the bills but I didn’t have a purpose. Now I do and I’m doing something I love. Since my stroke I have made some of the best friends and I’ve got a purpose that I didn’t have before.”
Kat has turned their spare room into a craft room and helps run craft sessions for others locally.
The couple also enjoy concerts and going on holiday and have now been abroad twice since the stroke.
Kat still regularly goes to Walkergate Park for counselling.
She said: “I blocked out a lot of what had happened and counselling has been a big help. We get so much support from everyone at Walkergate Park, from the café staff to the physios and the cleaners.
“They’re part of our life now.”