The stroke came in the early hours of the morning. Velinda Rolle could have panicked on May 6, but the Bermudian trusted that God would save Edward, her Bahamian husband of 29 years.

Doctors later confirmed that the former Spanish teacher at St George’s Secondary School had been paralysed by “a rare stroke of the spine”.

Mrs Rolle’s nephew, Miguel Taylor, contacted Lifestyle thinking people here might be interested in the plight of a former Bermuda teacher “who was like a father to him”.

After weeks of rehabilitation and prayer, Edward is on the mend in Atlanta, hoping to make his way to Wildwood Lifestyle Centre.

Mrs Rolle believes time at the Christian medical clinic will “optimise his chances of making a full recovery”. Family members have started a gofundme page to raise the $20,000 to get him there.

“He’s had a lot of medicines go through his system and we want their natural treatments to help wean him off them,” the Seventh-day Adventist said.

“At Wildwood they deal with natural therapy and herbal treatments; hydrotherapy, but they don’t accept insurance. You must pay cash. It’s the place I took my late father, Leroy Darrell, and it improved his life.”

Mr and Mrs Rolle met in Jamaica in 1980 at what’s now called Northern Caribbean University, a school run by the Seventh-day Adventist Church. They married here, in 1988.

“He moved me to Nassau and we lived there for five years,” said Mrs Rolle, who attended Bermuda Institute, the Seventh-day Adventist-run school, from kindergarten through grade 12.

“We had our first child there three years later and then we moved to Bermuda for two years.

“We left when his contract ended and then we moved back to the Bahamas, to the island of Andros. It’s the largest island in the Bahamas with a population of about 8,000.”

Mr Rolle taught at Central Andros High School for 19 years, rising through the ranks until he became vice-principal. In 2014 he was made principal of North Andros High School.

The couple remained active Seventh-day Adventists, establishing a chapter of the church there. From 2000, Mrs Rolle was also busy caring for her parents until her father’s death in 2008. Her mother, Edith Darrell, still lives with them.

“I have not been back to Bermuda in about seven years,” the former teacher said.

“We were just putting our youngest son through school and couldn’t afford it. I would love to visit but just have not been able to. It’s still my home country.”

Her husband’s stroke came as a surprise. According to Mrs Rolle, the 58-year-old was “very young for his age and was physically fit” prior to his illness.

“He exercised, ate well and practised good health habits,” she said. “He woke up on the morning of May 6 at about 4.30am with severe pain in his neck. I thought he’d just slept badly so I was rubbing it and then he began to lose circulation in his arms.”

The thought crossed her mind that he might be having a stroke but she didn’t think it possible.

“He was so health conscious. He was a vegetarian and had looked after his health. He couldn’t breathe, he couldn’t walk, his left side became paralysed.”

Fortunately, she was in a good frame of mind for coping.

Mrs Rolle said: “I’d woken at 4am that morning and said my usual prayer that I say when I wake [suddenly]: ‘God, somebody needs you and I ask that you please send your Holy Spirit and your angels to minister to them.’ I didn’t know that it was us who needed the Lord. So when it happened I had strength and courage. I don’t know how to describe it but I didn’t fall apart. I was able to handle everything.”

As Andros is without a hospital, Mr Rolle was airlifted to Nassau and placed in the Intensive Care Unit at Princess Margaret Hospital.

“He lost about 70lbs. He couldn’t eat and he was fed through a tube in his nose,” his wife said.

Four weeks later, a doctor recommended his transfer to Jackson Memorial Hospital in Miami, Florida. “That’s when they discovered he suffered a rare stroke of the spine,” Mrs Rolle said. “They noticed he had a displaced disc and they said that could have triggered it, but he also tends to have low blood pressure so that’s another factor.”

After five weeks, he was released, with outpatient therapy recommended. The family went to Atlanta hoping to get him to Wildwood.

“He was doing speech therapy, occupational therapy and physiotherapy. He had to relearn everything — from dressing himself to walking, sitting up and standing. The stroke impacted both sides of his body. Initially, he had about 40 per cent function on his right side and zero per cent on his left side; thank God his brain was intact. He was very upbeat the whole time but was only able to speak in a whisper, which is why he needed voice therapy.

“The Lord told me that he would be restored. During the time at Jackson Memorial we had him anointed. A local Adventist pastor came and prayed for him and anointed his head with oil and since then his health has steadily improved. The day after he was anointed, his voice came back and he began to speak. That was awesome.”

The couple decided to go to Atlanta as they could stay with relatives while Mr Rolle received further treatment.

“We’re staying with a nephew of mine from Bermuda, Steve Darrell. We’ve seen marked improvement in one week with no therapy; nerves just started waking up in his body. As a result of the nerves, he has got pain, especially on the side that was paralysed. But when lying down, he can move his left hand to touch his nose — that’s real progress. He’s also able to move his left foot enough to take steps with a walker.”

The hope is that Mr Rolle will be fully recovered in six months so he can go back to teaching.

“A lot of expenses have crept up [that aren’t covered by insurance] — living accommodations, transportation; my mother is here as well and we have to eat. That’s why we came to Atlanta for rehabilitation because we don’t know how many weeks we will have to stay here. We’ve had a lot of support and a lot of prayers from around the world for him but we certainly need continued prayers. He’s impacted a lot of lives; he still is.”