Pam Ashdown plays host to a variety of interesting guests in her role as manager at Mango House Resort, but none have touched her more than stroke victim Sarah Gapp.
Just three years ago Sarah was an active 21-year-old woman, working as a legal secretary in Brisbane, but on August 28, 2008 she suffered a massive brain stem stroke.
On more than one occasion doctors thought Sarah might die, but she in fact lived, left with a condition known as ‘locked-in syndrome’, which only one person in 100,000 survives.
Sarah’s mother Jane said her daughter was literally ‘locked in’ to her body, able to hear and think but physically only able to blink.
So began a long process of rehabilitation, left largely to Jane, who never missed a day of her daughter’s care in spite of being stricken with breast cancer herself. Three years on, Sarah can now breathe independently, free-sit, take steps with a walking frame and talk - to a degree.
Sarah’s journey to the Whitsundays dates back to her darkest days in ICU, when Jane brought various musicians to her daughter’s bedside, including Blues artist Michael Franti, who stayed in touch with the Gapp’s throughout Sarah’s remarkable road to recovery.
This year, Michael invited Sarah and Jane to the Byron Blues Festival taking them on stage and telling their tale. In the audience was Whitsunday musician Nadine O’Neill, who had just won an accommodation prize in the Airlie Beach talent quest at Relay for Life.
“Once I got home I had this voucher just sitting there staring me in the face,” said Nadine, who decided to offer it to the Gapp’s.
When Pam Ashdown learned more about her guests she told them to “stay as long as you like”.
“To me, Sarah is just an angel. This is a girl with a tracheotomy in her throat, yet when I asked her, “Did you ever feel like dying?” she said to me “I only ever felt like living”,” Pam said.
While Sarah was in the Whitsundays she was able to make trips to the reef and Daydream Island, where she told the Guardian her favourite experience was “touching the baby shark”.
Jane Gapp said the holiday was an extremely welcome break.
“We spend most of our time fighting for something – everything we do takes a considerable amount of effort so just being able to get away from it all has been great,” she said.
Sarah has a bright future with plenty more of these experiences ahead, but she needs therapy to enable her to walk independently and eat and drink.
To learn more about Sarah’s story or make a donation visit www.developingfoundation.org.au/family/sarahgapp
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