In 1992, when she was 14, Ms Norwood was playing with her friends in a swimming pool when she suffered a stroke, when a blood clot blocked the flow of blood to her brain.

Six months later, she suffered another stroke during an operation to have the blood clot removed, when blood spilled into her brain from a damaged blood vessel.

The effects of the second stroke were life changing. She had to learn to walk and eat again, suffers from chronic cognitive impairment including language impairment, has to take medication to prevent seizures, wears a walking aid on her right leg and must perform a daily routine of physiotherapy exercises to avoid the right side of her body seizing up.

“I used to be a good athlete, I loved to play sport and I was a great runner,” Ms Norwood said.

“When I was growing up, I planned on being a doctor or nurse, but that had to change.”

She can only work very limited hours each week because of her symptoms, which she says, as a single parent, makes it hard to bring in enough money to support her son Abram Norwood.

Despite her challenges, Ms Norwood has an unwavering positive outlook on life, helping her get through the tough days.

Now, aged 38, Ms Norwood has had enough of living with the after-effects of stroke and has set her sights on a life-changing treatment.

The drug is known as Etanercept, and has been used in Australia to treat inflammatory diseases like rheumatoid arthritis, but now there are trials being done by Queensland’s Griffith University and in the US to see if the drug can be effectively used to improve the lives of stroke survivors. 

While Ms Norwood would like to participate in the trials in Australia, participants must have had a stroke within the last 10 years so, instead, she must travel to the Institute of Neurological Recovery in the Florida city of Boca Raton to get treatment, with a view to go next year.

“It would help cognitively, I would be able to remember more things, I would be able to shake people’s hands, maybe even lose my walk aid. They work differently on different people, I don’t know exactly how it will help me,” she said.

“I’d love to work harder, be able to get a part-time job.”

However, travelling there and getting treatment will cost $50,000, so Ms Norwood’s sister Moira Quimby has set up a fundraiser to help her.

Collection tins are sitting on the counters of several businesses around Orange, with money also able to be donated online at www.gofundme.com/yxq8zj4.

“You’ve got to think positive, you can’t sit by yourself and hide away from everything. Before I’d sit by myself, but I’m sick of that now. I want to be able to live a normal life,” Ms Norwood said.

“It’s a short life to live, you’ve got to make the most of it.”

alexandra.king@fairfaxmedia.com.au