A LOT has changed in the last two-and-a-half years for Deborah Parkinson.

Happily married in 1991 to her childhood sweetheart, Gary, whom she met at the tender age of 15, she worked as a childminder, and later, mother to their three children while her husband played professional football.

Rather than following the usual lifestyle associated with being a top footballer, Gary ‘Parky’ Parkinson and his family have always been fiercely private.

However, their idyllic life was shattered September 2010 when Gary suffered a brain stem stroke that left him paralysed — leading to Locked-in Syndrome. Within hours he went from being a fit and healthy family man to someone fighting for his life.

Doctors said there was nothing they could do, but Debbie, saw a flicker of movement in Gary’s eyes — the only part of him not paralysed — and it gave her hope.

She asked for him to be transferred to Priory Highbank Centre, near Bury, for neuro-rehabilitation, where he stayed for two years before she finally won the battle to bring him home. It has been a long and difficult road for the family — but Debbie says she will never give up hope that her husband will recover.

She said: “There are many negative things that have been in the press about Tony Nicholson (who also suffered Locked-in Syndrome and campaigned for the right to die) but we still want to keep going.

“Kate Allett (who recovered following a stroke and Locked-in Syndrome) suffered in a similar way to Gary and she now educates the medical profession about the condition. She’s better than any doctors because she has been though it firsthand.

“The condition is still very rare but hopefully in the future more will be known about it.”

The sweethearts, who have lived in Bolton most of their lives, met at school in their hometown of Stockton-on Tees, Middlesbrough. They began dating after a shy Gary asked his friend to do the matchmaking — and as Gary’s career blossomed, so did their relationship.

They married in June 1991 before having three children, Luke, now aged 20, Chloe, aged 16, and nine-year-old Sophie.

They settled in Bolton in 1993 when Gary transferred to Wanderers — and stayed there when he played for Preston NE and Burnley.

Then in 2006, Gary started as Head of Youth Development at Blackpool FC — a job that Debbie fears may have triggered the stroke four years later.

Debbie said: “I think it was a bit of a shock to him, going from training to a pressured coaching job. So, perhaps the stress of that affected him. The doctors say it’s possible.” It all happened early one morning in September 2010 when Debbie woke to find Gary feeling unwell.

She said: “He said he had a strange headache. I went to get him painkillers but when I got back he’d gone an odd colour. I gave him a drink but he didn’t hold the glass properly.

“I told him I was going to ring an ambulance, and when he said, ‘hurry up’ I knew then it was very serious.”

Gary deteriorated and was moved to intensive care. Three days later, Debbie was told he had suffered a massive stroke — and now had Locked-in Syndrome. She said: “He was paralysed but cognitively all there. At the beginning it was a gloomy outlook. We were told his life expectancy was just two to three months, but he kept fighting.

“When his eyes opened in ICU, I knew we had something to fight for.” After two years at the rehab centre, Gary was allowed to return to their Westhoughton home, which has been adapted to accommodate his wheelchair and 24-hour care.

Debbie said: “On December 15 last year, Gary came home. It was the best Christmas we have ever had. I knew it wouldn’t always be rosy, but I didn’t want him to stay at a care home for the rest of his life.

“He needs 24-hour care to help him do everything from getting changed to washing, so a carer lives with us. We had to build an extension and a three-floor lift so that Gary can get upstairs, and we had to get a new car.

“Everything is so much better now he’s home. I can’t explain the horrendous wrench of leaving him each night at the hospital to go home without him.

“But now the best thing ever is to be able to say goodnight to him and all the kinds of things that many take for granted.”

To communicate, Gary uses his eyes to signal letters while Debbie goes through the alphabet. She said: “He can hear and see and makes us laugh sometimes. When the kids come home from school and ask if they can go on school trips he’ll tell them if they can go or not — just like any normal family.

“We’re currently trialing a ‘Toby 1’ computer, like the one that Stephen Hawking has, to help him communicate to the carers, although we’ll probably still use the alphabet because it’s more personal.”

Looking towards the future, Debbie knows it is a long road ahead but the family are throwing themselves into fundraising to help pay for Gary’s care — as well as trying to build his confidence to go out and watch a football game.

She said: “Gary hasn’t been out to watch a football game since he had the stroke, but we are working towards that. Sport is never off the TV though — he loves his football, obviously, as well as cricket, and golf.

“The children are doing their own things too — Luke is doing a charity bike ride from Stockton-on-Tees to Blackpool and Chloe is doing a 5k run. I’m really proud of them.”

Debbie says she always thinks positively and believes Gary will continue to make progress and — hopefully — go on to make a full recovery.

She said: “I still have lots of hope that he will come out of it. I can have times where I feel down, but I look at Gary and the children and they lift me and I realise that I don’t want to give in.”

LOCKED-IN SYNDROME

  • Locked-In Syndrome is a neurological disorder where the sufferer experiences total paralysis of nearly all the voluntary muscles in the body except for the eyes, leaving them unable to speak or move.
  • The trigger for the condition is often the result of a traumatic brain injury, a stroke or brain haemorrhage.
  • Those with locked-in syndrome may be able to communicate by blinking or moving their eyes.
  • There is no cure for the condition, nor a standard course of treatment, and the chances of recovery are limited.
  • Sufferer Tony Nicholson’s high-profile right-to-die court case was turned down by the High Court of Justice in 2012. He stopped eating, contracted pneumonia and died a week later.
  • However, Kate Allett, a mum-of-three from Sheffield, defied doctors by recovering from locked-in syndrome after having a stroke in 2010. She founded her charity Fighting Strokes, just five months after leaving hospital.