(Mirror) – A bride-to-be has been left “trapped inside her own body” after what she thought was a migraine turned out to be a major stroke at just 23.
Ruth Haslam, now 28, has locked in syndrome, when someone is conscious and aware, but paralysed and unable to speak, and mostly communicates using eye gaze technology – an advanced eye-driven tablet communication system.
She had only been with her partner Tom Whittaker, 36, for five months when she collapsed in his arms one day.
She was in a coma for three weeks, had to relearn “absolutely everything” – including how to swallow saliva – and wasn’t able to lift her head off a pillow for about six months after the stroke in January 2014.
Ruth, of Leeds, West Yorkshire, spent more than a year in hospital – with supportive Tom becoming her rock – and has now told of her determination to defy the odds and walk again on her wedding day.
But she said she will not get married to Tom – who left his job as a hospital porter dispatcher to become her primary carer – until she can walk down the aisle. CONTINUE