How my stroke happened

My stroke happened while I was already in hospital being treated for another Lupus attack.  I had been held in longer than my usual 1-2 weeks so was aware that something must be going on.

I remember it happening, a sensation of passing out - I got to my bed in a hazy, muffled state and then, I thought, fell asleep.

Technically as it was a swelling around the brain, it wasn't a stroke but the results were the same - inability to talk or walk or make myself properly understood.

For about the first year I cried and was frustrated at every turn.

I felt as though I were wearing a crash helmet and underwater.  Everything was off-centre and the day I fell for the first time in the street terrified me - I couldn't get up, I felt so exposed and vulnerable.  Fortunately a woman assisted and I was so embarrassed (I looked a fright pumped up on steroids and the tears had already started), I don't think I even thanked her.  I just wanted to get away.

Since then things have improved dramatically.

My speech, though by no means perfect is suitably adequate to get me through the day and quite often nobody knows that I have aphasia!  I do tend to be a bit of a coward and turn subjects into things I know or can talk about.

The tiredness is annoying but I can't do a great deal about that.  I try to look forward and not dwell on the past as it hinders me and I've spent far too long crying and feeling sorry for myself.

People do seem to have a strange attitude to stroke and aphasia, as though you are expected to make a full recovery and that if you still persist in being ill after a length of time, you are dragging it out and not really trying.  If I'd lost a limb, nobody would have expected it to grow back!  

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Travels

I made a couple of stabs at independence early on - I went to Poland first and a couple of years later I took myself off again, this time for France to see the Palais Idéal at Hauterives about 60 miles south-east of Lyon.

I never enjoyed lazing around on a beach for a holiday, much preferring to poke around places.  I love going away to somewhere new and discovering its secrets.  I tend to go with my Mum as we are both interested in similar things - Italy a couple of times, America and Australia.