A nan whose husband collapsed with a brain bleed had to be rushed to hospital herself after suffering a massive blood clot while packing him an overnight bag.
Patricia Sheridan, 80, was gathering toiletries for her husband Peter at their St Helens home when she was struck down with a pulmonary embolism and heart failure in August 2020. The couple, who recently celebrated their diamond wedding anniversary, were taken to Whiston Hospital in the same ambulance.
Their daughter Donna, 50, said: "I went to their home and found my dad collapsed on the floor. I called emergency services as you do, paramedics came and checked him over and said he had to go in because he couldn't get up - he'd spent all night on the floor.
READ MORE: This is how much drinks cost at Aintree Racecourse
"I went upstairs and asked mum to help me pack a bag for dad, and then she collapsed on the bed and started to fit. Her eyes were rolling, she was shaking, she was clenching her mouth. She couldn't really breathe. She seemed as though she was gasping for breath.
"I shouted to the paramedics downstairs and they had to call out another set of paramedics, but they couldn't get mum stable at all. They couldn't bring her round."
Patricia was placed on a ward at Whiston Hospital, while Peter, 79, was transferred to the Walton Centre in Fazakerly for emergency brain surgery. Five months later, he was sent for rehab at Newton Community Hospital.
Donna said: "We got a phonecall, me and my sister, saying that mum had taken a turn for the worse and to come and say our goodbyes. As we were driving from my house, I got another phonecall saying my dad had taken a turn and to say goodbye to him. We had to make a split second decision to drop my sister off at Whiston, and I went to Walton.
"They were very poorly. Dad was in intensive care for a while. Luckily they are strong as oxes, so they rallied round. But there were a couple of occasions where we thought 'they're not going to pull through'."
Peter and Patricia, both grandparents of two, were allowed to return home in November 2020, and life went on as usual thanks to the help of daily visits from carers. But tragedy struck again when Peter suffered a stroke on February 1, 2022, and spent six months in hospital after catching Covid-19 three times during his stay.
Against the odds, he was able to return home in time for Christmas - but now finds himself confined to his house, only leaving for hospital appointments, when he has to be carried out on a stretcher. His daughters, Donna and Dawn, 40, have started a fund-raiser in the hope of installing a patio door which would allow him to go outside again.
Donna said: "Dad has always been an outdoor man. Typically as a family we go out for walks or go to his allotment, which he's had for 50 years. It's a very big part of our lives. But now Dad is paralysed down his right hand side. He's got a hospital bed, a therapy chair.
"We've had to turn the dining room into a hospital ward because he's on over 100 medications a day. He can't get out of the back door because the kitchen is narrow, and the front door has a high step and we've got to rely on a stretcher to get him in and out.
"He's been very positive throughout and has accepted that his life has changed forever. But he is missing his allotment and his hens. It is affecting him, not being able to go outside when you've been out your whole life.
"We want to give Dad his quality of life back It would mean so much, because if he could just do some planting in the garden and feed the birds it would lift his mood and spirits for the time we've got left."
READ NEXT
Man hit girlfriend with shovel as she fed her son breakfast and threw dog poo at her
Mastermind behind £150m fraud empire moved fake designer clothes through Liverpool
Huge home with pool in need of facelift for sale
Dad with contacts in Colombia flooded UK with tens of millions of pounds of drugs
Mum with no symptoms given devastating diagnosis after phone call
