Dad left unable to walk or talk after ‘dodgy stomach’

My nephew was playing rugby and David said his stomach was feeling dodgy. We just put it down to a 24-hour bug and said to go to the doctor.”

After receiving antibiotics from his GP, David’s condition started to deteriorate. Four days after the match the 40-year-old went to the Princess of Wales Hospital complaining of the pins and needles.

A week later he was re-admitted, this time to the intensive care unit.

Rhianne, 31, said: “They gave him antibiotics but because he couldn’t keep anything down he had to go to hospital. On the Saturday he started having pins and needles.

“He phoned me and said ‘I’m dying’ and I just told him he was being a drama queen. I feel bad now, he couldn’t get out of bed.

“He was using my mother’s zimmer frame, he just couldn’t walk. Me and my father had to lift him onto the sofa.”

Guillain-Barré syndrome is thought to affect one person in 100,000 each year. The exact cause is not yet known.

Mother-of-one Rhianne said: “The pins and needles worked its way through his body. They couldn’t stop it, it was just a case of waiting to see how high it would reach.

“On Tuesday he went to the ICU early morning and by Thursday he was put in an induced coma.

“Over 48 hours he couldn’t move anything. His fingers were like a corpse to touch, they were so cold.

“When they put him in a coma they fitted him with a tracheotomy which has been there to this day, which has been three months.”

As well as relying on assistance to breathe David must also use a voice box to help him talk.

He has now been transferred to a specialist unit in Llandough Hospital in Cardiff to help his rehabilitation.

Rhianne said: “He’s lost four and a half stone, he was quite muscly and big and he’s gone to bone. He spent his 40th birthday in hospital.

“Their main target is to get him off the ventilator and eating. Then it will be a case of possibly moving him to a rehabilitation centre as he will have to learn to walk again and write again – everything we do he will have to learn again. They said it will take about 12 to 18 months for him to work again.”

David’s goal is to arrive home by his son’s seventh birthday in November.

The family face a long journey ahead to help him reach his target.

Rhianne said: “It’s been hard. He has his children and a lot of the time they were constantly asking ‘when is daddy coming home?’.

“It was a couple of weeks before we did some research and showed them what a tracheotomy was, so it wasn’t going to frighten them when they saw him.”

Since being admitted to hospital David and his family have been overwhelmed by the support he has received from the Bridgend community. Thousands of pounds have been raised to help the entrepreneur when he returns home.

David’s family are now planning a sky dive to raise money for GuillainBarré syndrome charity GAIN.