WORDS: JOHANNA BELL. PHOTOS (MAIN POSED BY MODELS): GETTY, THE SUN/NEWS LICENSING, THE TIMES/NEWS LICENSING
‘I had no choice but to step into the role’
Katy Lennon, 42, lives in Weybridge, Surrey, with her husband Tom, 41, and their daughters Lottie, nine, and Teddy, six.
In September 2022 everything changed. My husband Tom and I were busy juggling family life with our kids, Lottie, then seven, and Teddy, four, with our jobs – me as a marketing manager and Tom running a recruitment company. Tom hadn’t seemed right for a few weeks – slow and lacking energy. When he finally accepted something was wrong, I knew it must be serious and drove him to hospital, where they found he’d suffered a heart dissection – a tear in his aorta. He collapsed at hospital and, following surgery, we discovered that the heart dissection had starved his brain of oxygen and he had a hypoxic brain injury.
After spending a year in hospital and rehab, learning to walk, talk and eat again, he came home in October 2023. He wasn’t ready and was reliant on a wheelchair, but we couldn’t afford £4,000 a week to keep him in rehab once the NHS funding stopped.
The NHS provided at-home carers four times a day for six weeks but after that, we were on our own. Unable to afford private care, I had no choice but to step into a carer role, and for six weeks, I juggled everything myself, before social services agreed to fund a carer once a day. These days Tom is in a much better place – able to walk short distances with a stick and do more for himself. But I’ll never forget how hard those six weeks were as his carer. Here’s what a typical day looked like…
6:50AM
I get up early and shower to get a head start on the day while Tom and our daughters are still asleep. If I don’t shower now I won’t have time as, in just 20 minutes, my roles as mummy, carer and marketing manager kick in.
7:50AM
After getting the girls ready I leave Tom sleeping while I do the school run. We converted the playroom downstairs into a bedroom, kitted out with a hospital bed, TV, chair and an exercise bike for his physio. The bed and chair are on loan from the NHS. Tom was only just starting to stand and learning to walk again when he left rehab in October 2023, so he still needs a lot of assistance and relies on a wheelchair.
8:10AM
Once home I change Tom’s urine bottles from the night before, then I help him climb the stairs for a shower and to help him get dressed. He’s very wobbly, so I m
