How a little dog came to the rescue after his Sussex owner suffered a stroke

Jason Parker was struggling to cope following his illness when his little pet - Ralph - gave him a moment of hope.

It came as Jason was able to walk the three-year-old cockapoo again for the first time.

It marked a marvellous milestone for Jason on his road to recovery after the stroke – a bleed the size of a tennis ball in his brain - happened while he was raking leaves in the garden of his home in Bolney in December 2019.

“I felt suddenly tired, thinking I needed a break,” said Jason. “I then noticed that I couldn’t tell my left leg to kick a football. I then fell over and realised I couldn’t use my left arm either.

“My throat was tightening. I had to crawl with one arm back up to the house to call for help.

“My wife Victoria is a doctor and realised it was a stroke.

“I was taken by ambulance to Royal Sussex County Hospital in Brighton within 20 minutes of the stroke, admitted to the hyper acute stroke unit and given a brain scan within an hour.

“No medicines were given other than a saline drip and then medication to reduce the panic attacks that I was experiencing.

“I had a bleed the size of a tennis ball in my brain. I couldn’t sit, stand, walk, hug.”

It took two weeks before doctors were able to see on a CT scan that the bleed was caused by an Arterial Venous Malformation or AVM, a naturally occurring angle of blood vessels in the brain, which had burst.