A dancer has retold of the scary moment she was laughing and joking with colleagues - and then suddenly collapsed without warning after suffering a brain injury.
Mererid Rees, from Lampeter, was a performer at Global Village in Dubai for more than four years when she suffered an brain arteriovenous malformation (AVM) - which left the right side of her body immobile. A brain AVM is described as “a tangle of blood vessels in the brain bypasses normal brain tissue and directly diverts blood from the arteries to the veins”. AVMs are mostly found in the brain and spinal cord and most people are born with them, but they can form later in life. Some people show no symptoms until they experience bleeding, like Mererid, which resulted in a stroke.
The 27-year-old said: “I went to work and then one second I was laughing and then the second I collapsed and I said I couldn't feel any of my right side. My friend caught me - because she was right next to me - and I think she saved my life. She caught me before I hit the hard floor where I was working."
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She continued: “I don't remember it myself. I just hear the stories that people tell me about it. It's really weird because I was awake but I don't remember ever having the shock of not feeling my right side. I think it was so traumatic my brain has just stopped me from remembering it. I was quite laid back about it, but I must have probably had a different reaction at the time. I don't remember about two weeks of being in the hospital. I was in the hospital for about five weeks and then I got flown back to the UK."
Mererid is currently in the process of learning to walk again, write with her left hand and figure out everyday tasks - something that has been physically and mentally draining.
She said: “It was probably worse for my brother and sister that had to cope with everything as they had the responsibility of getting me from Dubai to the UK safely." She added: "it was a really long process to get me out of the hospital and get things signed off for me to be able to fly.”
After leaving Dubai, Mererid spent six months in Glangwili Hospital learning how to walk and adapt to daily tasks with her injuries. She said: “Mentally it's hard because I can't feel my right side, but I've adapted and I have a functional electrical simulation (FES) on my leg, so my foot knows how to move to walk properly. But if I’m tired and I don't concentrate, I trip up quite a lot. It’s more mentally challenging because I can't feel my right side.”
Mererid has also started hydrotherapy, which she describes as “the best thing” for her. She added: “I push myself every time I go....It’s been a struggle but now I feel like more is changing because I finally have the right people.”
Currently, Mererid receives her treatment from the NHS, she added: “It was so backlogged that’s why it’s taken so long for me to get the help I need.” Mererid is still waiting to see a neurologist in Cardiff and receive radiotherapy to reduce the size of the AVM, but her sister, Sioned Allan, hopes to raise funds to get Mererid private rehabilitation, medical care and equipment.
To fundraise for this care and also give back to the acute stroke ward in Glangwili Hospital, Sioned created a virtual walk challenge from Lampeter to Dubai, where family, friends and members of the community came together to help give Mererid the treatment she desperately needs.
Sioned said: “Since this happened to Mererid, I took up walking to get some clarity and talk with friends. The walking got a bit more extreme and we signed up for a 1,000-mile challenge which we did really quickly. I know I wanted to do a fundraiser for Mererid and I was talking with friends and decided to do a walking challenge from Wales to Dubai, which is 5,000 miles.”
The challenge was to walk the distance of Lampeter to Dubai and back. Over the 10 weeks, 250 people took part in the challenge to walk 10,000 miles - but they surpassed that and tripled the mileage. In total, the group did 31,624.95 miles to raise funds for Mererid's much needed treatment.
Mererid added: “I didn’t realise how depressing winter was in the UK - I haven’t had a winter in four years. So I feel like it helped other people mentally too as they had something to work towards.” Mererid also took part in the challenge and set herself goals to walk on her own around the town she grew up in. Despite sometimes being anxious that something might happen while walking alone, she knows she’s in the best place possible to complete these challenges.
She said: "Being in Lampeter has been really helpful because everyone knows me and I know them. It’s even helpful to just walk into a café and they’re like ‘well done’ - it's so nice and it makes me believe in myself.” She added that although she didn’t intend on moving back home before her AVM rupture, being back in her community has been “so comforting” and she doesn’t "feel so alone" in her recovery.
The community has been walking, running, and cycling since October. Currently, the fundraiser has raised over £7k, but they hope to reach £20k to help fund Mererid’s treatment and give back to Glangwili's acute stroke ward. Mererid and her family want to give back to the ward that helped them so much. She said: “They helped me so much and I’m still in touch with some of them now and when I go shopping in Carmarthen I always bump into someone from that ward. They were amazing.”
To donate to Mererid's fundraiser, visit justgiving.com/crowdfunding/mezvirtualchallenge.
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