I want to go home: Locked-in mother desperate to return to her family two years

When Nicola Watson greets her daughters each day after school, she always has a special smile for them.
But the 42-year-old struggles to do little more - because since suffering from a brainstem stroke two years ago, she has been locked inside her own body in hospital.

Daily visits: Emma (left) and Hannah (right) visit their mother Nicola each day after school along with their father Neil. They want to adapt their home so she can leave hospital

Although Mrs Watson can see, hear and think normally she can only communicate with her family with tiny movements of her head.
The mother-of-two is almost completely paralysed and spells out words using a computer operated by a switch that she knocks against.
Mrs Watson had been a busy working mother, juggling her job for the Ministry of Defence with caring for her husband and two daughters.
But then in July 2009 she collapsed out of the blue at her family home in Carlisle.

Neil Watson, who used to own his own garage door company until his wife’s illness, said: ‘Nicola had been complaining of a stiff neck for a few days, but apart from that there were no signs at all that she was unwell.
‘She collapsed at the top of the stairs early one morning and she was taken straight to hospital.
‘She was fun loving and absolutely lived life to the full before this happened. Now she is trapped in her own body.’

Before the stroke: Mr Watson (pictured with Nicola a few years ago) had never heard of locked-in syndrome before his wife fell ill

Mrs Watson, who has two daughters Hannah, 13, and Emma, 11, had complained of a sore neck a few days before.
Mr Watson said: ‘She hadn’t slept very well and she was meant to be going shopping to Newcastle with the girls and I said to her she should stay at home.
‘That night I heard a noise. Nicola had got out of bed to go to the bathroom and she started calling me from the top of the stairs.
‘I rushed over to her and she was speaking in a slurred voice and I knew that something was seriously wrong.’
Mr Watson called an ambulance which took his wife to Cumberland Infirmary, but she lost consciousness in the ambulance.
She was put on a life support machine for ten weeks and spent the first four weeks in a semi-coma.
Mr Watson said: ‘They told us she had suffered a serious stroke which had affected her brain stem.
‘Tests showed she had locked-in syndrome, which I had never heard of. When I knew what it was, it was devastating news.
‘Nicola had always been such a lively person. She loved life and she loved being a mum more than anything. When the girls were born she was over the moon and she did so much with them. She would love taking them shopping and going to theme parks.
‘She always put the girls before her - she was a fantastic mum. To see her lying there unable to move or speak was just heartbreaking.’

Nicola, pictured before her stroke, has communicated to Neil that she is desperate to go back to their home in Carlisle

After she came off the life support machine, Mrs Watson was only able to communicate with her family by blinking. She would blink once for yes and two for no.
Mr Watson said: ‘That was the first time she was able to communicate with us. We would ask her questions and she would be able to blink for yes or no.
‘She can remember everything - her mind hasn’t been affected. She can even remember having the stroke. Her mind works perfectly, but she just can’t move. It is so incredibly frustrating for her.’
Mrs Watson then used an alphabet chart designed by her husband, where he traced the letters and she would blink at the right letter.
She has now moved on to the adapted computer. Although if can take minutes to spell out each word it has helped Mrs Watson ‘talk’ to her family.
She can convey simple sentences and hopes to be able to move from the nursing home in Carlisle back to her family home, and the family are busy raising thousands of pounds to help this happen.
Mr Watson said: ‘We will have to make lots of adaptions to our family home, but we want Nicola to come home more than anything, and so does she.
‘We never want to give up hope. Nicola tells us through the computer that she wants to come home more than anything.’
Mrs Watson’s daughters now visit her in the nursing home and spend time with their mother, putting on her makeup and doing her hair.
Mr Watson said: ‘The girls have been absolutely fantastic throughout all this and really keep Nicola going.
‘They climb into bed with her to give her cuddles, and they do her hair and makeup for her, and even paint her fingernails for her.
‘They are absolutely brilliant and I’m so proud of them. They don’t let it get them down, they just get on with helping their mum.’
Locked-in syndrome is sometimes described as ‘like being buried alive.’
The most famous case was Jean-Dominique Bauby, the French journalist who could only communicate by blinking an eye.
He wrote the book The Diving Bell and The Butterfly in 1997, which was adapted into a film 10 years later.