Just three weeks after giving birth to her first child, Melissa Broad was hit with a splitting headache. The pain was nothing like she had experienced before, and it had come on her all of a sudden.
She now knows the term for that headache is the thunder clap, and it happens at the point of a burst brain aneurysm, something that can happen to people experiencing a stroke. She booked an emergency appointment with her GP the next morning and was told it was likely just a migraine.
At 29-years-old with a newborn to look after, she got on with her day and went to bed early at 8pm but woke up suddenly in the middle of the night. "My husband Paul explains it as something from the Exorcist, I was rocking back and forth with my head in my hands. At that point, I could not speak, I had completely lost my speech."
