George's Story - The Grand Appeal's Patient Hotel

In 2020, Sara went through every parent’s worst nightmare: her three-year-old son George suffered a stroke.

The family assumed they would be in Bristol Children’s Hospital for a few weeks while George recovered, but their stay lasted three months.

Sara told us why George’s hospital journey inspired her to support The Grand Appeal’s Patient Hotel and how this groundbreaking project will transform the lives of families like hers.

“I used to walk past the children’s hospital every day on my way back from work. It always made me grateful that my child was healthy. I could never have imagined we would end up there one day.

When my son, George, was just three years old, he suffered a stroke.

We’d visited the park that day. We had a great time, and George went to bed as usual. A few hours later, George woke up unexpectedly. He was clawing at his face and chest, visibly distressed.

We called 999 as George only seemed to get worse. As we waited, he went limp down one side. The paramedics arrived. They took one look at us and asked us all to jump into the ambulance with George.

That’s when I knew it was bad. Usually, only one parent would be allowed to travel with George because of the coronavirus, but both George’s dad, Simon, and I were able to go with him.

Arriving at Bristol Children’s Hospital was a blur of tests and scans. Doctors told us it wasn’t a stroke. ‘It might have been a seizure’, they said. I was relieved.

We stayed in the hospital overnight, expecting to wake up and find George back to normal. It didn’t happen. In the morning, he was no better and still couldn’t move his left side.

He even tried to say ‘I love you mummy’ but couldn’t quite get the words out. My heart broke.

A consultant asked for an urgent MRI scan, which revealed George had suffered a stroke in the part of the brain that controls movement. Simon and I were devastated.

The next week felt like an onslaught of tests, trying to find the cause for George’s stroke.

Life was bleak. George was only three years old. It was impossible to explain to him what was happening. He hated taking his medicines and the constant tests. Staff told us that many of the after-effects from the stroke would be with him for life.

“The future we had mapped out for George suddenly seemed very different. Despite the hopelessness we felt, we never doubted that we were in the best possible place for George.

Sara, George’s mum

I thought I would stay with George in hospital for a few weeks, but in fact, we spent three months at Bristol Children’s Hospital.

After two weeks, George started physiotherapy. Progress seemed painfully slow, but his therapy team appeared to have an endless source of enthusiasm, patience, skill and creativity. Getting a three-year-old to engage with physiotherapy and occupational therapy is incredibly hard, but they pulled out all the stops.

Three exhausting months later, and our brave little boy was strong enough to come home. Throughout George’s therapy, the team had kept me informed, so I knew exactly what to do when it came to continuing his rehabilitation at home.

The nursing staff were incredible too. George and I always felt surrounded by expertise and care.

George is now eight. He will always have a few challenges, and he’ll never quite be the same but he’s running about as the cheeky little boy he was before.

Bristol Children’s Hospital helped my child to learn to walk again, and I try to feel lucky that I got to see him take his first steps twice. Every time his left hand opens to grasp something, it makes me smile.

As soon as I heard about The Grand Appeal’s Patient Hotel, I was so excited because it will be life-changing for the children who need it, as well as their parents. My first thought was: I wish we’d had that!

Living on a hospital ward, negotiating the noises and lights while trying to sleep, wash, eat and play, adds another layer of stress on top of the trauma you’re already dealing with. I vividly remember crying into a pillow so the strangers in the bed next to us wouldn’t hear me.

As we were relatively local, we were able to move on to an outpatient programme after three months. Otherwise, we would have needed to stay in the hospital for six months. A good friend of ours was there for a year.

After we found out that George had suffered a stroke, we were devastated, shellshocked and scrambling to come to terms with a whole new future with a disabled child that we hadn’t planned for. While it wouldn’t have changed what happened to George, the Patient Hotel would have made the following months of rehabilitation infinitely easier to cope with.

To know that future families, like ours and those we met, will have the opportunity to access this incredible facility fills me with hope and happiness.

Sara, George’s mum

The Patient Hotel will gift families privacy, togetherness, and some normalcy during the most challenging times. What that will do to reduce some of the fear, anxiety and strain that comes with long hospital stays cannot be expressed in words.”