Michelle Murray MY HUSBAND AND I have been together for 23 years and never spent a day away from each other until 4 February 2020. Now, it’s been over two years that we are apart since Charles had a stroke that night.
But after three long days in intensive care, followed by several long months recovering in hospital, his speech has returned but life is different now. He has a language disorder, aphasia; he’s not able to walk and his right hand and arm do not work. Occupational therapists, physiotherapists and a medical social worker have also sent letters to the council on our behalf. The only response that they are getting is that the local authority doesn’t have suitable houses in stock.It’s completely unacceptable that there are such gaps in the availability of housing for disabled people. Nobody knows when it’s going to happen. With the click of your fingers, you can be healthy one minute, and then the next minute you can have a stroke.
Our youngest just started secondary school and our eldest started college and Charles told me: “I should have been there for that. I should be there for all my kids”. He said he feels like he’s in prison and all he can do is look out the window all day. It’s not fair. Nobody should have to go through that.
Luckily, over the last few weeks, the HSE have arranged for him to go to Mullingar and get physiotherapy. He’s happy in himself doing that because he just wants to get out and back to his family. But we don’t know when that is going to happen.