'Doctors thought I had a stroke during birth but the truth was even more devastating'

A mum who thought she had a stroke during her "traumatic" birth discovered something even more devastating when doctors finally gave her answers. Tracy White, from Lincolnshire, was nearing the end of her sixth in December 2013 when she started to notice some unusual symptoms. But as she was 41 at the time, she 'put them down to age'.

Tracy, who has a 31-year-old son and mixed sex twins of 29 from a previous marriage, as well as sons of 15 and 11 and a daughter of 23 with her current husband, told The : "I had extreme tiredness, which is normal, but I felt stiff, and I couldn't stand up for long periods of time, and my right leg was dragging. At the time, I didn't realise what it was and didn't think anything of it, I just thought it was my age."

Things only got worse when she gave birth to little Sebastian. "I wondered if I had some kind of mini-stroke at birth as it wasn't very pleasant, and I started having a major tremor 20 minutes after I had him," she explained. "As I suffer from high and have done for the last 20 years, I thought it could have been a stroke.

"Sebastian was born with a tumour on his liver, so we were in the hospital with him, and I noticed the right side of my body just wasn't working," she said. "I tried to use my foot to tap a baby rocker my son was in, but I couldn't even do that - I couldn't lift my right foot up to do it. And when one of the doctors came in, I started having a tremor on my right side, and I knew something wasn't right."

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When she returned home, the mum struggled to cope with her symptoms while juggling a newborn and still had no answers. "I didn't say anything to my husband until we came home, my concerns were with my baby at the time. But dealing with my newborn and my symptoms at the same time was very difficult."

Around three months after giving birth, she went to the doctors about her health concerns. The doctor swiftly sent Tracy to A&E, believing she had indeed suffered a stroke. "When I got there, my blood pressure was so high they took me straight into resuscitation," she said.

"I was absolutely fine, but my blood pressure was extremely high, and from there, they did a brain and MRI scan." Tracy returned to see the consultant, who confirmed she hadn't had a stroke and wasn't sure what was wrong. But Tracy knew something still wasn't right.

"The signals in my brain weren't going to my arms and my right leg, so I thought I'm going to see a neurologist," Tracy explained. She was put on a waiting list, and after a further nine months, she finally received a diagnosis in 2015 she would have never expected 'in a million years'. At the age of 43, the mum was diagnosed with Parkinson's disease.

"I was in there for less than a minute, and the neurologist said, 'I think you've got Parkinson's. It was a massive shock because no one in my family has it, and they said it was very unusual at my age," she recalled. "At the time, I thought they had got it wrong - I honestly didn't believe it."

According to Parkinson's UK, just 1.2 percent of people in the UK who are diagnosed with the disease are under 50. In the UK, around 153,000 are already living with the condition and every hour, two more people are diagnosed.

Tracy, who is now 52, had a DaTscan, a brain scan used to diagnose the condition. She shared: "It's very hard to diagnose Parkinson's, but my test showed that there was a low dopamine level, and it confirmed my diagnosis that I did have Young-onset Parkinson's disease (YOPD)."

At the time she got the life-changing diagnosis, Tracy's dad was tragically diagnosed with secondary melanoma. "I wasn't dealing with my Parkinson's for a while as I was just focusing on my dad," she admitted. "I didn't do much research, and I didn't want to know about it. I knew that I wasn't going to die from it, but I knew my dad had a terminal illness, and he was all I cared about at the time. It wasn't until I lost my dad in 2017 that my symptoms deteriorated."

Tracy explained that after losing her dad, she finally realised she needed some help with her Parkinson's. "Not just medical help but support. I needed to talk to people about Parkinson's around my age, and that's when I found the groups, which helped me more than anything," she said.

"When you have Parkinson's, any kind of stress or nervousness increases your symptoms, and depression is one of them. My symptoms were causing me a lot more problems, and I had been seeing a Parkinson's nurse, but since my diagnosis, my medication has just increased and increased."

Explaining how the disease affects her today, the mum shared: "I suffer from extreme slowness and stiffness. I wake up in absolute agony every morning, and I can't move. I have to have my medication next to my bed, and often, my husband has to pass it to me because, during the night, I get to the point where I'm so stiff.

"I shuffle, and with shuffling, you've got to be really careful as I've fallen over quite a few times because you lose your balance. You lose so much of your ability and the simplest things, such as writing, you just can't, especially as it mainly affects my right side. Although I am beginning to suffer on my left side now as well."

To help with her mobility, Tracy sometimes uses a walking stick. She added: "Generally, within 20 minutes of taking medication, I start to feel OK, but then it's a regime of taking medication every two to four hours. Although it's a lot of medication, it does give me the ability to do certain things with my children, being able to take them to school, for example."

"I've got so many good friends in the Parkinson's community, and I can't tell you how much that makes a difference. It can be depressing, and my condition has deteriorated over the past 10 years, but I choose to think about what I can do rather than what I can't do. I do have bad days, but it's family and friends that help you through, that's for sure."

After being diagnosed with Parkinson's, Tracy set up a TikTok page under the username @tracywhite41 to help raise more awareness of the disease and to have "a bit of fun with it", too. She said: "I used to think you can't have Parkinson's without the tremors, but looking back, there's not enough awareness out there, really. That's why I use my TikTok, and I also want to prove to people that you can still have fun even if you're not very well."