Childbirth-stroke mum becomes a nurse to say thanks for saving us
Julie Gray suffered a major stroke moments after giving birth to her first child. Doctors feared the worst, but the mum fought back and has become a nurse. Health Correspondent Mark Smith tells her story...
JUST moments after giving birth to her first child, Julie Gray suffered a devastating stroke which left her in a coma for 10 days.
Doctors told her heartbroken family that she could die or be left with life-changing brain damage as a result of the “brain attack”.
But against the odds the 36-yearold quickly learned to walk and talk again – spurred on by her desire to hold her newborn baby – and has now landed her “dream” job as a nurse.
Julie, from Brynna, near Pencoed, said the incredible work of NHS staff during her ordeal inspired her to change career.
“It was their compassion and the way they went out of their way to help me which really stood out,” she said.
“I was so poorly that I was transferred to a specialist neurology hospital away from my newborn son, Matthew, who was very premature.
“I was told one neonatal nurse was always by Matthew’s side in the special care baby unit.
“As she’d been with him so much – and, in truth, knew him better than I did – I let her name him.
“I was torn between Matthew and William, and she picked Matthew.”
Julie, who is originally from Liverpool, said she experienced a variety of medical complications during her pregnancy.
She suffered with kidney infections, and doctors also discovered a huge cyst on her ovary which needed to be removed urgently.
“The cyst was the size of a football,” added Julie, who was 20 years old at the time.
When she was 30 weeks into her pregnancy Julie collapsed at home and was taken to hospital by her former partner.
“They found out that my blood pressure was dangerously high,” she added.
“Even though there was still quite a way to go in my pregnancy, they said I wouldn’t be going anywhere until the baby was born.”
Despite taking medication Julie’s blood pressure continued to rise, so the decision was made to give her an emergency C-section at 31 weeks and two days.
But just moments after Matthew was born, Julie suffered an eclamptic fit, which then went on to cause a stroke.
“I was so poorly that I didn’t have the strength in my arms to hold my baby son. He was only 2lb 12oz when he was born,” she said. Shortly after this, Julie had her stroke and was in a coma for 10 days while NHS staff worked hard to keep tiny Matthew alive. “The doctors apparently told my parents that if I woke up I wouldn’t walk again, and that it was probably best to get the family together to say their goodbyes to me,” she said.
When she woke up from her coma, Julie said she remembers seeing her father by her bedside and taking the ventilation tube out of her throat.
“I remembered having the baby and asking how he was, but I couldn’t talk properly because the right side of my mouth had dropped.
“I was also unable to move or walk, which was incredibly frustrating. In my head I knew how to walk but my body just wouldn’t do it.
“I couldn’t get myself up to go to the toilet. I’d try and drink some water and it would spill everywhere. I just felt like I was trapped inside my own body.”
Nurses from the special care baby unit would send Julie videos of Matthew in his incubator. It was those clips and images which she said gave her the drive to recover more quickly.
“That just kept me going,” she added.
“I just remember one day being stuck and needing to go to the toilet. I just stood up, pulled all of my tubes out, and my mum, Angie, walked me there.
“She was with me almost the whole time I was in hospital.”
Julie, who made a miraculous recovery from her stroke, then moved to south Wales with her new partner.
She then made the incredibly bold decision to have a second child – which didn’t go down too well with some of her relatives.
“Telling my mother wasn’t easy,” she joked.
“I think she thought I was an idiot for getting pregnant again.”
Despite suffering with bouts of sickness and bleeding, Julie’s blood pressure remained relatively normal due to regular injections and aspirin.
It meant she was able to safely give birth to baby Adam at the University Hospital of Wales, in Cardiff, followed by her third son, Oliver, at the Royal Glamorgan Hospital.
In her bid to give something back to the medical profession Julie started a university degree as a nurse and completed a year at Cardiff University, before transferring to the University of South Wales in 2015 for her final two years.
“I am proud that I have continued to push myself for the four to five years I have been studying, despite all the barriers and challenges I have faced,” said Julie, who told her story as part of International Nurses Day on May 12.
“I am also proud of my children and how they have put up with me and adapted to no longer having their mummy home full time.
“I have thoroughly enjoyed all my placements and I love being a nurse and helping to ‘fix’ poorly children.”
She has now managed to secure a job as a band 5 staff nurse at the Noah’s Ark Children’s Hospital for Wales, in Cardiff.
In the meantime, as part of her university placement, she is working in the neonatal unit at the Princess of Wales Hospital, in Bridgend.
“During International Nurses Day this year I will be working a 12-hour shift on the special baby care unit as part of my consolidation placement, which I am really looking forward to starting. It will be nice to see the unit from the other side after all my children have spent time there.”