It left him with a sliver of hope.
A UK carpenter’s life nearly splintered apart when he suffered a stroke and nearly lost his sight after a splinter in his hand sparked a ferocious infection.
“He deteriorated through the evening and was in intense pain,” the poor soul’s mother, Jackie Parkyn, 65, told SWNS of the disastrous incident, which occurred in August 2020 after her son Dave Parkyn, now 30, got a splinter in his hand while working with wood.
The Cornwall-based carpenter first felt something was awry when he “came home from work with a massive headache and feeling really ill,” his mother said.
Because he “was in intense pain,” Jackie dialed emergency services for “advice.”
She said Dave subsequently reported to his general practitioner, who mistakenly chalked up his headache to a possible pulled back muscle. They then sent the ailing carpenter home and told him to return in a few days if his condition hadn’t improved, Jackie reported.
Little did the docs know, Dave had actually suffered a major stroke. The Brit’s condition continued to worsen throughout the night, so he was taken to the hospital the following morning, whereupon doctors confirmed he had suffered a massive cerebrovascular incident, SWNS reported.
According to examiners, the splinter wound had become infected with bacterial meningitis, which coursed throughout his system and caused the massive strokes. Dave also suffered from pneumonia and sepsis — a potentially life-threatening affliction in which the body’s response to an infection damages its own tissues.
A mere two days after returning from work unwell, Dave was put into a medically induced coma with a machine sustaining his bodily functions. Doctors even advised his family to switch off life support if his condition didn’t improve.
Thankfully, the carpenter eventually made it out of the woods, but the ordeal rendered him blind in his right eye. Also, he lost some vision in his left eye and was left with disabilities affecting an arm and a leg.
The effects weren’t just physical: The “devastating” condition forced Dave to quit his job, costing him “his income, his self-confidence, pride and ambition,” according to Jackie.
“Dave will never fully be able to do the job he loved so much,” lamented his heartbroken parent. She added that her son “recently returned to work as a carpenter, although not in the same capacity he formerly was.”
“He is now beginning to accept some of what has happened and is trying to rebuild a career and a life, albeit different to the one he planned,” she said.
The embattled man has also started talking to a stroke counselor, which he says has helped him come to grips with the traumatic saga.
“It helped me think about how to let out my anger and frustration which is a huge part of the healing process,” Dave explained. “It was just nice to be able to talk to someone and share my feelings and not feel judged.”
The relieved stroke survivor added, “When I come out after our sessions, I feel like a big weight has come off my shoulders.”
His mother said the sessions help her cope with her feelings of “guilt” following the incident. “The counseling from the Stroke Association has helped us both get what has happened in a better perspective, although neither of us will ever really accept how that has devastated his life,” she said. “Maybe I’m not going to get over the guilt, but I have realized that I need to accept it and move on.”
This isn’t the first time a seemingly innocuous affliction has snowballed out of control. A firefighter, who was coincidentally also from Cornwall, had to undergo lifesaving open-heart surgery in 2020 after his habit of poking at a popcorn kernel in his teeth sparked a serious blood infection.