Helen Preston still relives the sickening moment she entered her toddler’s bedroom to find him lying motionless on the floor, his face strangely distorted.

Two-year-old Archie had been playing happily in his room just moments before.

But in the time it took his mum Helen to get dressed, he suffered a stroke leaving him paralysed on one side and unable to walk or talk.

“I saw his face had dropped on one side,” says Helen, 34. “At first I thought he was just making funny faces. Then I picked him up and noticed his right side was just hanging there.”

Trying not to panic and assuming their son had simply trapped a nerve, Helen and her husband Mark drove Archie to their nearest medical centre.

“We pushed thoughts of a stroke to the back of our mind,” remembers Helen.

“We thought they only happened to old people not babies.”

But scans at St Mary’s Hospital, Portsmouth, and then at the city’s Queen Alexandra Hospital confirmed the worst.

A mild bout of chickenpox six months previously had narrowed blood vessels in Archie’s brain, causing a clot to form. The blockage had cut the blood supply to part of his brain, starving it of oxygen and leading to damage.

“I remember breaking down when they told me,” says Helen who had endured an agonising four-day wait with her son in hospital for the diagnosis. “But in a funny sort of way we were relieved it wasn’t something else. At least we could deal with a stroke and come out the other side.”

Archie’s stroke had damaged the part of his brain responsible for speech and left him unable to control the right hand side of his body.

Stunned, the Prestons were discharged from hospital and Archie’s battle to recovery began.

“The neurologist said there was a one in four chance he would have another stroke in the next year,” says Helen who had to give Archie, now three, an aspirin everyday to help thin his blood.

“It felt like a ticking time bomb. I have never been so scared in all my life and it still scares me now. I was at home with a little boy who couldn’t walk or talk anymore and all we had was a fact sheet printed from the Internet about childhood stroke. We felt so alone.

“Every morning I would go to his room wondering if it had happened again in the night. I became very over protective and at first I didn’t want to go out. I just wanted to keep Archie safe so we wrapped ourselves up in this protective bubble.”

Two months after leaving hospital, Archie developed a painful hip cond ition caused by the extra pressure he was now putting on his left side.

“It was heartbreaking to see him screaming in pain because he couldn’t even lie down,” says Helen.

But with regular physiotherapy and speech therapy Archie is making remarkable progress.

Fifteen months on, as he runs boisterously around his sitting room playing with his toy trains, few people would guess the struggle he has been through.

“We’re so proud of him. He can move his right side now but he doesn’t know how to use it. He’s had to learn to use his left hand instead.”

Tightened muscles in his right leg also mean Archie struggles with walking and often falls over.

“He gets frustrated because he can’t make his body move in the way he wants it to. He was always so placid and laid back before but now he gets angry and he tires easily. His concentration has been effected too. He’ll just flit from one thing to the next.

“He was quite independent before but now he is nervous and won’t even go in lifts. Sometimes he wakes up in the night and it’s horrible when he tells me he feels scared. At three years old you shouldn’t have anything to worry about.”

Helen – who now suffers from anxiety attacks – says family life is “hard and tiring” since the stroke.

“Every day has been a battle,” she says. “I’ve had to push at every step of the way to get the support we felt we needed. In our experience there just isn’t the information out there for childhood stroke.

We were even turned away from one support group because it ‘wasn’t suitable’ for children. I felt there was nowhere for us to turn.”

She hopes that allowing Archie to take part in a Bristol University study into the effects of childhood stroke may have an impact on aftercare and help other parents facing a similar situation in the future.

“Our life stopped when Archie had his stroke. It was horrific and so frightening because we didn’t know what was happening and whether it was going to happen again. Your life changes in seconds.

“But he’s one of the lucky ones. He so easily might not be here. We never thought we’d see him running around again. I just have to thank God that my little baby is here with us and that he is getting stronger each day.

“When I look at him and see how well he has done in the past 15 months, it just shows us what a little fighter he really is. He’s determined and that’s why he’s been able to make such an amazing progress. He’s a miracle.”

■ For information about strokes, call The Stroke Association helpline on 0845 3033 100, email info@stroke.org.uk or write to Stroke Information Service, Stroke House, 240 City Road, London EC1V 2PR.