‘I was really lucky’

Woman completes fundraiser after suffering a stroke at 35

Yvette Hill was lying in bed one night when she suffered a major stroke, leaving her paralysed and unable to speak.

She told the Tele today that she could have died if it had not been for her partner coming home from a night out and finding her.

She said: “I fell out of the bed and I couldn’t speak and I couldn’t move.

“He knew that something was really wrong with me and I was rushed to Edinburgh Royal Infirmary by ambulance.”

When Yvette suffered the stroke, her family was tasked with giving the allclear for doctors to treat her with thrombolysis.

She said that the treatment could have potentially left her with a brain bleed but it had the desired effect.

She said: “It was my best hope of recovering my movement and speech. I could have ended up paralysed or I could have died — I was really lucky.”

Yvette, who worked as a financial services senior client relations administrator, was unable to work for three months after suffering the stroke.

She only recently managed to return to work on a part-time basis.

Now 38, the St Mary’s woman has completed a 6.5km race in aid of the charity that supported her and helped her get to the final stages of her recovery.

She said: “Different Strokes is a charity run by stroke survivors which has a Facebook group and other support groups. I was told about them by my stroke consultant at the hospital.

“It’s an amazing support network and any money I raise will help them be there for people who go through what I did. I wouldn’t be where I am without them. Having a stroke isn’t something that you think will ever happen to you and they were there to guide me through everything.”

A DUNDEE woman who suffered a major stroke at 35 has run in a fundraiser for the final lap of her recovery.

From left: Yvette before the race, with stepdad Jake Kennedy at Murrayfield in Edinburgh and outside the stadium on the day of the race.