A Harrogate woman who had a stroke when she was just 18 years old is running the London marathon to raise money to help others.
Millie Carrington was a healthy teenager when she suffered a stroke during a weekend job at a supermarket in Harrogate 10 years ago.
She had just finished A-levels at Harrogate Grammar School and did not imagine someone so young and healthy could be affected by such a serious condition. Millie said:
“I had many of the telltale signs – the right side of my face fell, I was weak down one side, I had issues speaking and understanding conversation.
“I vividly remember thinking to myself, ‘this feels like I’m having a stroke’. Yet due to my age, both those who witnessed it, as well as myself, didn’t think I was actually having a stroke. I instead put it down to a particularly bad migraine.
“It would take three more days of screaming headaches, trouble walking, problems speaking, writing and communicating, and constant sleeping before I went to a hospital where doctors diagnosed a blood clot in my brain. After many tests, they concluded that the cause was due to a previously undetected hole in my heart, which I later had surgery to close.”
Millie pictured a few months after her stroke.
Millie says she was “incredibly lucky” to make a full recovery after speech and occupational therapy, and heart surgery to fix the cause of the stroke.
In 2015 she and a friend hitchhiked from Edinburgh to Paris to raise money for the Stroke Association, which supports stroke survivors.
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Now she is attempting to raise £2,000 for the same organisation by completing the 26-mile route through the capital on April 23. She also wants to reach out to young people.
She said:
“I especially want to use this opportunity to raise awareness that a stroke can happen to anyone, of any age. I was very lucky to recover in full, but this doesn’t happen for a lot of people.
“Seeking medical attention in the first three hours often means the person receives crucial medication that gives them the best chance of survival and recovery.”
Millie has already raised nearly half of her £2,000 target. You can support her charity run here.