Daily Mirror (Northern Ireland)
I LOVE YOU
Locked-in syndrome wife’s first words to husband after 4 months of silence:
A WOMAN who could not communicate for four months except by blinking finally regained her voice and told her husband: “I love you.”
Keen cyclist Norma Cullen, 69, suffered locked-in syndrome after complications from a tummy bug.
Paralysed and unable even to breathe unaided after developing the rare neurological condition Guillain-barré Syndrome, the grandmother emerged from weeks of sedation unable to move anything but her eyes.
She said: “You really are locked in. It’s like you’re in a bubble.
“To have all these thoughts and not be able to express them was the height of frustration.”
At first her family used an alphabet board to help her spell out what she wanted to say.
But it could take half an hour to finish a sentence, so she started to spell out just one word then blink yes or no to questions.
STRONGER
Gradually Norma began to improve, able to move her head, shrug and smile.
Finally doctors fitted a speaking valve to the tracheotomy through which she was being ventilated – and she saved her precious first words for husband Phil, 69.
Norma from St Ives, Cornwall, recalled: “When Phil came in I said, ‘I couldn’t tell you yesterday but I can today. I love you.’
“His jaw dropped, then he said ‘Oh, I love you too,’ and gave me a hug. There were tears from us all.
“He says I sounded like a Dalek but it was wonderful to be finally able to communicate.”
Norma spent six months in hospital and 11 in the Nhs-run Marie Therese rehab centre before returning home this spring.
She still cannot walk but is doing an 86-mile indoor cycling challenge – the length of Cornwall – already raising thousands for the Marie Therese centre and Guillain-barre charity Gain.
Donate at virginmoneygiving. com/normacullen