Amber says: “As Mum and Dad talked to the doctor beside me, I tried to move my right arm, then my right leg. Nothing. My brain felt like it was in a fog.”

She spent the next two months in hospital recovering.

“Gradually I began to recognise my family and my speech started coming back,” she says.

“When I went home in September 1998 I was in a wheelchair, and my parents, who manage a warehouse, took time off work to look after me.

“I had intensive speech therapy and physiotherapy at home in Middlesex.

"It was frustrating, but after six months I could walk again, and a year after the stroke I went back to school.”

But Amber suffered another two strokes when she was 18, then had two more at 19, followed by two mini ones at 20.

Then in 2006, when she was 21, she had another huge stroke.

“After that one, doctors did tests and discovered I’d been born with three small holes in my heart,” she explains.

“I had surgery to correct them, but they weren’t thought significant enough to have caused the strokes. The cause is still a mystery.”

Eight strokes have had a major impact on Amber’s life.

She’s now registered disabled and although visually there are no obvious signs of her ordeal, she experiences loss of strength and control in her arms and legs when she’s tired.

“I’ve had bad days when I think: ‘Why me?’, but I tell myself to remain positive. It’s important to stay motivated when you’re getting over a stroke.

“I missed out on a lot of normal teenage things,” she says.

“I couldn’t go to college because of the strokes I had at 18 and 19, and I lost contact with a lot of friends.”

Amber was eventually well enough to get a job training as a dispenser at a pharmacy, but then two years ago she had her last stroke and she still isn’t well enough to work.

She claims disability living allowance, but hopes to start work again in a pharmacy soon.

She’s now living in a flat in London, and is looking forward to marrying her fiancé Christian Wantling, 35.

“I met Christian in a bar when I was visiting family in Northamptonshire,” says Amber.

“We got chatting, and he was just my type – tall with blue eyes and stubble.

“I told him about the strokes, and he took it in his stride.

"We quickly fell in love and we’re hoping to marry next year.”

Amber takes the blood-thinning drug wafarin to help prevent another life-threatening stroke, and she walks two miles a day to keep fit.

Doctors have told her never to smoke and to avoid alcohol.

“My health is quite good at the moment, and hopefully it will hold out until the wedding next year.

"Maybe I won’t have another stroke,” Amber says.

But no one can say for sure. She knows another massive stroke could be fatal, but refuses to live in fear.

“It’s important to keep fighting,” she says. “When I was first paralysed and couldn’t speak, every day was a fight. But I never gave up, and now I feel lucky to be alive.”

Support The Stroke Association in Siemens Stroke For Stroke Week, October 27-November 2, by taking part in a sponsored row at your local gym. Visit Siemens.co.uk/strokeforstroke and receive a free LA Fitness Gym pass.

Photography: lancton hair & make up: Soula Henderson at joy goodman