Paralyzed dad learns to walk, talk again by mimicking baby daughter
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A young father who was trapped in his own body after a stroke learned to walk and talk again – by copying his baby daughter.
Mark Ellis was just 22 when he suffered a stroke and developed locked-in syndrome – a condition that leaves the sufferer's brain alert but their body paralyzed.
The sudden stroke in August 2010 left him completely helpless, forcing him to communicate by rolling his eyes.
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A previously fit and healthy young man, doctors induced him into a coma and told his shocked family it was unlikely he would survive.
Just two weeks earlier, his wife Amy, 32, had given birth to their daughter Lola-Rose.
Mark amazed his doctors when eight months later he left the hospital and began learning how to talk and walk again – by mimicking his baby daughter.
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“It’s amazing that they have learned to do things together, and now Mark can talk and walk with the use of a frame," said Amy Ellis, of Clay Cross, Derbyshire in the U.K.
“There wasn’t much time between him and Lola-Rose both taking their first steps – I think Mark took his first steps a week or two after Lola."
Ellis said the father and daughter team use books, games and an iPad to learn new things together.
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Days before his stroke, Mark complained of having a migraine, and visited the hospital, which sent him home with Tylenol.
He continued to feel bad, and went back to the hospital, where he had a MRI. The MRI showed he had already suffered the stroke.
Doctors found Mark had suffered a blood clot in his brain stem, which they described as the worst they had seen in such a young man.
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