‘Support workers helped me reclaim my life’
A DISABLED mum who spent 10 months in a refuge after moving to Stockport from Spain has praised the support workers who helped her reclaim her life.
Katie Booth and her son Elliott, eight, moved back to the UK after Katie’s relationship with Elliott’s dad broke down and they were given a room at a hostel run by Stockport Without Abuse (SWA).
A few weeks ago they were able to move into their own home in Heaviley and Katie, who had lived in Spain since 2003, says she could not have done it without the help she received from SWA.
She said: “The refuge was amazing and the help I got was brilliant. They really supported me and did everything they could. Getting somewhere to live was complicated for me because technically my name was still on the mortgage of the house I lived in in Spain, but I couldn’t stay there.
“We came back from Spain with just five suitcases of stuff. I didn’t even know that things like tax credits existed – I had never claimed benefits in this country.
“I don’t know how I would have done it without SWA, they got Elliott into school within a couple of days and got him a uniform and everything.
“We came here with nothing at all and SWA arranged all sorts of things. They took me to Furniture Station so I could get some furniture for the house as I had nothing.”
Katie, who grew up in Woodsmoor, suffered a brain aneurysm while she was four months pregnant with Elliott.
She was living in Spain at the time, running a restaurant with her partner and had to spend the remainder of her pregnancy in hospital.
She said: “I had to have a 12-and-a-half hour brain surgery. They put a stent in my brain and I had 250 stitches in my head.
“They did everything they could to protect the baby – the doctors said it was a total miracle that we had both survived.
“When I first woke up after the surgery I couldn’t even sit up.”
The incident has left Katie with a number of disabilities; she has a limp when she walks, does not have full movement in one hand and is partially sighted.
She also has chronic neuropathic pain, which has to be alleviated by a pump attached to her spine that blocks the pain signals coming from her nervous system.
But despite everything she has had to overcome Katie says she and Elliott are happy to be back in Stockport.
“Elliott loves it here, he is so happy at school and he has just fitted right in,” she said. “It is amazing to have our own little home. It felt very strange moving in but I feel really settled now.”