She is not alone, with Nia Tyler suffering a stroke when she was 20, despite thinking she was just hungover.<\/p>\n
Experts say there is a misconception only older people are affected by strokes, but about one in 150 strokes occur in someone under 20.<\/p>\n
Along with Cari Davies, 28, they live with the long-term effects and want to help others “find people who understand” through a ball they are set to host.<\/p>\n
Mererid, 30, from Lampeter, Ceredigion, was a performer at Global Village in Dubai for more than four years when her whole world turned upside.<\/p>\n
After having a brain AVM while out for breakfast, she was rushed to hospital by ambulance and was in an intensive care unit for 10 days.<\/p>\n
During this time, her sister Sioned Allan, who was back in Wales, was told she “urgently needed an operation or would die”.<\/p>\n
“They found an AVM and a burst aneurysm<\/a>, and then they found an aneurysm that was just about to burst,” Mererid said.<\/p>\n “[It] still blows my mind that someone operated on my brain.”<\/p>\n Mererid was in the ICU for 10 days and needed life-saving surgery after her AVM rupture [Mererid Rees]<\/p>\n How does an AVM cause a stroke?<\/p>\n An AVM rupture happens when a tangle of abnormal blood vessels in the brain burst and spill blood into the surrounding brain tissue.<\/p>\n AVMs are mostly found in the brain and spinal cord, and most people are born with them, but they can form later in life.<\/p>\n Like Mererid, some people show no symptoms until they experience bleeding resulting in a stroke.<\/p>\n After leaving Dubai, Mererid spent six months on the stroke ward in Glangwili Hospital in Carmarthen.<\/p>\n She spent months – which at times were physically and mentally draining – learning how to walk again and adapting to daily tasks with her injuries.<\/p>\n Mererid said her walking had come on “leaps and bounds” but she still “can’t really feel” the right side of her body.<\/p>\n “I had radiotherapy, that’s to get rid of the AVM, but it takes five years to get rid of,” she explained.<\/p>\n “That kills healthy cells off, so I’ve lost my right-hand-side eyesight.<\/p>\n “I’ve lost the peripheral vision, so yeah pretty, pretty blind.”<\/p>\n Mererid has completed many challenges and goals since her stroke, even walking up Pen-y-Fan, the highest peak in south Wales at 886m (2,907ft) [Mererid Rees]<\/p>\n Mererid said having a stroke at a young age could be isolating, as it was “hard for able-bodied people to understand”.<\/p>\n She added that “it’s just so important for people to know that there are other people in the same boat as them” and “important for people to find people that get it”.<\/p>\n She first met Cari Davies, 28, at Glangwilli hospital after a nurse on the ward told her there was “another young person here”.<\/p>\n Cari, a former teacher from Carmarthen, was initially diagnosed with Lupus<\/a> before having a stroke in February 2022 and spent a month in hospital.<\/p>\n Mererid said: “She was really poorly, so I didn’t want to intrude but I wanted to help her out. So I gave her an affirmation card.”<\/p>\n Affirmation cards are small cards featuring positive slogans or messages and gifting them is a way of showing someone support.<\/p>\n Cari said: “I was really negative, it was just really awful and I was just crying all the time, but Mererid was a beacon of positivity – we’ve just built a friendship from there.”<\/p>\n Cari Davies had a stroke and spent a month in the same hospital as Mererid Rees [BBC Wales]<\/p>\n![\"Mererid](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/769a6c8b2d8ec81b88cd9f35be58d1c1.jpeg\"\/)
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