When Chloe Nightingale suffered a devastating stroke last June, her family were told to say their goodbyes. Just 26 the newly qualified teacher had been visiting her father in Norfolk when she began to feel unwell and lost feeling down her left side.

Her mum Wendy describes how Chloe phoned her crying to say: “Mum, I think I’m having a stroke”. “I said, ‘Don’t be silly, you’re not having a stroke, you’re 26, perhaps something else has happened,’” she says. “She’d had back problems before with bulging discs and a trapped nerve where she lost the use of her left leg, so I assumed it was this.

“We were also waiting for her to be diagnosed with Tourette’s as she had a few tics, so I thought maybe it was to do with that as it can look like she’s having an epileptic fit, but then she started talking rubbish and was so confused.” The family called 999. An ambulance arrived quickly and paramedics placed Chloe into an induced coma.

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When Wendy arrived at the hospital she received devastating news. “The doctor said to me ‘We’ve done a CT scan and there’s nothing we can do for her. Come and say your goodbyes,’ she says. “They said it was too severe. It was just horrendous. But then 10 minutes later they said Addenbrooke’s had agreed to try to save her life and operate on her, and she was transferred that evening.

“She was operated on for six-and-a-half hours - the longest six-and-a-half hours of my life. But it was successful. They said ‘She’s still with us, we don’t know in what capacity, and due to the severity she may never walk or talk again’.

The team of neurosurgeons at Addenbrooke’s Hospital in Cambridge saved Chloe’s life but she was at the very beginning of a long road to recovery. She woke from an eight day coma unable to see, speak, walk or eat and it would be 229 days before she was discharged from hospital into the care of her mum in Bishop’s Stortford, Hertfordshire.

Her two brothers Luke, 28, and Ben, 19, have also been supporting their sister. Wendy said her daughter is making remarkable progress and can now walk short distances, talk again and is getting stronger every day. “She’s been amazing and has fought and defied all the odds. She’s very determined,” she added.

“It’s unbelievable from what doctors thought would happen and they’re so impressed by how far she’s come. “Her short-term memory has been affected but her long-term memory is good. It was the left side of her brain that had the bleed, which affects the right side of her body, and we’re waiting for her to have more therapy to help with that.

A scan revealed Chloe still has a “rare” tangle of veins and blood vessels deep in her brain that is inoperable, known as AVM (arteriovenous malformation), and she will require radiotherapy going forward. Chloe’s friend Hayley Bart-Williams has launched a GoFundMe page to raise £15,000 to provide ongoing private specialist physiotherapy.

It will also help adapt the new home Chloe has bought in Barking when she began working as a secondary school teacher and provide her with the stability and independence she needs to live her life. The family are struggling to secure financial support for Chloe, who was told that because she had not paid National Insurance for the period of her unpaid teacher training course, she was ineligible for disability benefits.

Wendy has written to Hertford and Stortford MP Josh Dean for help, and Wendy’s partner, Claire, is fundraising, with plans to run 229km (142.3 miles) for the 229 days Chloe spent in hospital. “I want to say a huge thank you to all my family and friends – without their help I couldn’t have got through the last eight months,” says Wendy, who runs a childminding business from home.

“For the initial two-and-a-half weeks I was closed when it happened, all my parents looked after each other’s children and came together to support me. I couldn’t have done it without them.”

You can donate to help Chloe here https://www.gofundme.com/f/only-26-a-stroke-changed-everything-help-chloe-heal