Ciara Murray from Enniskillen
Ciara was just 32 years old and 36½ weeks pregnant when she suffered a stroke.
Ciara says, “When I had my stroke, my husband John was at work, so I was lying there for seven hours in and out of consciousness. The doctors said if I had been there much longer, the baby or I might not have made it."
"The last thing I remember was being put in an ambulance to the Royal. The next day they removed the clot from my brain and delivered my baby at the same time."
"Then I was put into an induced coma and didn’t wake up for 10 days. When I finally came around, a nurse on the stroke ward broke the news that I’d had a baby boy.”
Ciara’s recovery was just beginning, and it was a long road ahead. "Suddenly I was in the hospital, having to use a hoist, a catheter, a wheelchair, and drink liquid food. I had to relearn to walk, which was so difficult. John would put baby James in his chair and I would follow him down the corridor in tears knowing I had to do it for him."
“When I got the news I had to go to RABIU, I was devastated. I knew I had to do it, to get better for James, but I dreaded being so far away from him again. I would go home to Fermanagh for the weekend on Friday then back up to RABIU in Belfast on Sunday night. On Sunday evenings I would have to tell my family to take James away, because I couldn’t look at him without breaking down.”
“At RABIU, there were poems framed on the walls everywhere by Clodagh Dunlop, and everyone would talk about her. I found out she was a stroke survivor who had just left RABIU shortly before I arrived and I heard all about her journey with Locked-in syndrome. Then I met Lisa. When I would come out of physio, Lisa would be waiting to go in. It was great to have Lisa to talk to, someone in a similarly surreal situation of having a stroke and a newborn!”