Hollie is still recovering from surgery nightmare
BY SARAH WARD reporters@dailyrecord.co.uk A STUDENT has told of the horrifying moment she had a stroke as she was about to be given anaesthetic for an operation – but couldn’t tell doctors what was happening.
Hollie Simpson, 23, suffers from cystic fibrosis and was taken into hospital for surgery to stop bleeding on her lungs.
Hollie, then 21, blacked out before she was put under. She came to, knowing something was wrong but couldn’t tell anyone what had happened.
The anaesthetic was then administered and the operation went ahead as planned.
Hollie, from Forres, Moray, said: “Just before they knocked me out, I blacked out.
“I couldn’t move my right side but I started wriggling and trying to move my head.
“I couldn’t communicate that something was wrong, so they did the surgery anyway.”
When she eventually came to after the four-hour op, Hollie was numb down her right side and could not move or speak.
Medics at Edinburgh Royal Infirmary gave her a CT scan and the stroke was picked up.
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classics student at the Open University has been learning to speak and walk again for the past two years.
After 10 days in Edinburgh, she was moved to the stroke unit at Raigmore Hospital in Inverness.
Hollie said: “I was the youngest person on the ward by 20 years.
“I had to learn to speak again by watching people talk and relearn to move my mouth in the correct way.”
Although she was soon speaking and moving better, Hollie felt very anxious about her speech – and was terrified of leaving the house. And despite the operation, she continued to suffer from bleeding on her lungs, and was afraid to leave the house alone in case she was taken ill.
Back living with her parents, Hollie felt unable to face the outside world until she had the help of a rehabilitation support coordinator from Chest Heart & Stroke Scotland.
They went out for cake and hot chocolate, and Hollie’s fears about being understood subsided.
Hollie said: “The more I talked, the more my speech got better.
“I’m getting a lot more confident, and can do things on my own.”