Cat Davies, 38, from Crowthorne, Berkshire, first noticed her son Henry acting strangely in October 2025, when he was three. Playing with his cousin, Henry began laughing in an odd way and was unsteady on his feet, but within a minute or two he was back to normal.
“I thought it was pins and needles or he was being silly,” Cat said. “It only lasted one or two minutes, so I just disregarded it.” Over the next few weeks, Henry had one or two similar spells that disappeared almost as soon as they started.
Recognising the signs
The alarm came one evening at bedtime. While Cat was reading Henry a story, he laughed despite nothing funny in the book. When he tried to stand to reach a toy plane hanging from the ceiling, he wobbled and could not keep his balance. Then the right side of his body went weak, a corner of his mouth drooped, and he made grunting noises instead of speaking.
“That’s when I recognised the signs of stroke,” Cat said. “I shouted to my husband, ‘I think he’s having a stroke.’”
Diagnosis and tests
The couple called 999 immediately. Henry was taken to a local hospital and then transferred to Southampton Hospital, where doctors ran 23 tests in 24 hours, including MRI scans, blood tests and heart examinations. The results showed Henry had been having transient ischaemic attacks (TIAs) — mini strokes caused by blood clots in his brain.
Cat said she had no idea children could have strokes and was shocked. A consultant suggested Henry’s chickenpox infection from six months earlier might have been a trigger, though tests found no remaining virus. Henry had been due for his chickenpox vaccine the same week he was diagnosed.
“You just can’t help but think ‘what if’,” she said. “If we’d just got the vaccine quicker or not taken him to nursery that day, none of this could have happened.”
Recovery and a new mission
Now four, Henry has not had another stroke since his diagnosis and is due to start school in September. Scans showed he had experienced eight strokes and sustained some brain damage, but Cat says he currently shows no symptoms. “You would never know what happened to him,” she said. “Right now, he’s not presenting any symptoms of brain damage. He’s happy and healthy.”
The ordeal left Cat and Ian struggling to cope. Cat has had counselling and still worries whenever Henry behaves differently. “Any time he’s a bit silly, I just get scared,” she said. “Is there going to be another one?”
To help other families, Cat wrote a children’s book inspired by Henry’s journey, Harry’s Wibbly Wobbly Moments, after failing to find a similar book. It is self-published and all profits go to the Stroke Association and the Paediatric Neurology department’s Amazon Wishlist. “I’m not doing this to make money,” Cat said. “I just want to help other children like Henry.”
