Lionesses goalkeeper Ellie Roebuck has opened up on her recovery from a stroke that made her fear for her career but also realise how 'lucky' she was.
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Roebuck suffered a type of stroke in 2023-24 seasonLionesses goalkeeper opens up on 'miracle' recoveryAdmits she is 'lucky' not to be blindFollow GOAL on WhatsApp! 🟢📱WHAT HAPPENED?
Roebuck was found to have had an infarct in her left occipital lobe, which is a type of stroke, in January 2024, having felt like something was "not quite right" in the weeks before. She was just 24 years old at this time. The occipital lobe is the visual processing area of the brain and could have had a serious impact on her vision, something she told in an extensive interview she is "lucky" was not the case.
"I should have lost my vision," she said. "I should have lost my peripheral vision for sure. The majority of people that suffer a stroke [like mine] do that. So, I probably should have been blind, which is quite a miracle that that didn't happen."
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Still, it left Roebuck fearing for her career, just two weeks after she had signed a pre-contract agreement with Barcelona, the European champions, ahead of a move from Manchester City that would take place in the summer.
"My first question was, 'Am I going to play football again?'" she said, though there was no immediate answer. "The nurses said you can't carry shopping for six weeks. You can't do any exercise. I thought, 'I'm a professional footballer, I can't do that'.
"I wouldn't walk my dog for like six weeks. I wouldn't leave the house. I was scared to do anything on my own. And that was never me, I was always super independent. My mum and dad were doing shifts of living with me in my one-bedroom flat in Manchester."
WHAT'S MORE
Roebuck then underwent tests to find out the cause of the stroke and a tiny hole in her heart was discovered. "[It] sounds crazy, but I was grateful that I had a hole in my heart because I'd found my reason and I knew that it could be closed and I could move on. I was almost excited that I was going in for heart surgery," she said.
However, in surgery, the hole was identified but a membrane had formed and doctors believed it had closed up by itself, which left Roebuck frustrated again as it meant she would never fully understand what caused her stroke.
She added: "You've almost got to think you've been given a second chance, but I'm also so angry that it happened, because I think, 'Why?'"
DID YOU KNOW?
"I feel like I value life a lot more," Roebuck continued. "I was stuck in a real cycle of thinking football was everything and I think for that period of time where I didn't know if I could be a footballer, it made me realise, you have to find something else. And that was hard because my whole personality was Ellie the footballer.
"I didn't know if I was going play again so it was just a great way to channel my energy and have that focus to distract myself. It's a perfect way to start and eventually hopefully one day the aim is to have a coffee shop. The biggest struggle is becoming a normal human again but luckily I've nearly been able to do that."