Fighting stroke will take all of us
Xander was just 5 years old when his family received news that they didn’t think was possible – Xander had a stroke.
Xander’s mum Stacey remembers, “It was not something on our radar. We knew that children could have strokes, but we just put it down as clumsiness because his symptoms came and went.”
In October of 2019, Xander's parents started to notice small physical differences. In the morning, his speech was slightly slurred, and he became uncoordinated. "He has ASD and is extremely articulate, and we started to notice that his speech was changing. There was also one incident at this time when he suddenly said, 'I can’t see out of my right eye', yet it resolved immediately. It’s actually scary to look at all of these things now and see how long we waited to investigate!"
After 4 weeks of strange symptoms, Xander's parents took him to the GP, who sent him for an MRI. "Due to Xander’s ASD, the MRI was difficult, and it took 2 attempts to get him through it. The technician approached me when it was over and said, 'We’ve found something, you need to go straight to Emergency'. We were told that he’d been having small strokes over the last few weeks."
Unfortunately, Xander has had more strokes since then. With every stroke, comes more testing, questions and uncertainty for Xander’s family. Four years later, the family is still waiting for answers. Doctors think Xander has a very rare condition that affects the blood vessels his brain, causing repeat strokes.
Xander's family chose to share their story for Stroke Foundation's January Appeal.
They want to ensure that survivors of stroke and their families have the treatment and care they need. From health professionals keeping up-to-date with the latest in stroke diagnosis and care, to families finding support and resources – vital services such as InformMe (health professionals) and EnableMe are there to help the entire stroke community.