A dad could only blink and use his big toe to communicate after a stroke.
In April 2022 James Gilbert, from Warrington was working from home when he began to feel sick and called 999. An extra artery in James' head - which had been unidentified since birth - had burst causing a brain haemorrhage.
The dad-of-two struggled down the stairs and into the garden where he was spotted by a neighbour. James was stabilised in Whiston Hospital and then immediately transferred to The Walton Centre for life-saving surgery and treatment.
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When the ECHO spoke to his mum Sue last year she said: "He could not talk, he was communicating with us using a buzzer that he would press with his big toe. We are taking baby steps each day and he has started talking now, he can be hard to understand but they are massive strides."
Working on his rehabilitation journey, James was able to communicate, using specialist methods, and finally, have visitors. For a large part of James’ rehabilitation, he had a tracheostomy, which unsettled his young children and became difficult to explain.
Sue said James is the "best dad in the whole world" and his youngest daughter Maddison "followed him everywhere he went". But his daughters seeing him wired up machines was having a "big effect on them."
James said: “The kids would come and visit and be upset about all the different tubes and things I had attached to my body. The tracheostomy in my neck was particularly distressing for them and I couldn’t tell them properly that I was ok and it was actually helping."
Speech and Language Therapist Charlotte Lawrence and Therapy Assistant Emma Cottier saw there was a way to support James and his young family – with a teddy bear.
Charlotte said: “The team had been discussing ways that we could facilitate James’ children coming into the hospital, to support his rehabilitation and make it a less scary experience for them. Emma’s daughter very generously donated one of her teddy bears to the ward. The bear named 'Ted' was given a tracheostomy, similar to that of James’."
James said: “The Tracheostomy Ted was a game-changer. My daughters were less anxious about it because they’d played with the teddy and talked about it with my wife. It meant that we could have proper visits and I could enjoy their company without having to answer loads of questions about it. I was finally able to get some hugs".
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