A message of hope for stroke survivors

Part 1 - How Strokes Mess With Your Head

Today (10 October) is World Mental Health Day. Its objective is to raise awareness of mental health issues and mobilise efforts in support of mental health.

With that in mind I want to talk about how strokes mess with your head and the constant battle to overcome depression and remedies to control it.

A year ago last month I suffered a live changing stroke three weeks after I had retired as a senior lecturer in public relations studies at Leeds Beckett University and almost 50 years to the day when I began my career in comms. It left me temporarily paralysed down the left side of my body from my head to my toes.

I had to learn how to walk again, how to use my hands and how to feed myself, just like a toddler. The amazing team at Bradford Royal Infirmary and the team on Stroke Ward 5 at Airedale General Hospital in Steeton, West Yorkshire - the consultants to the doctors, nurses, physios and occupational therapists - did a truly amazing job to rehabilitate me and I will be forever grateful to them for their dedication and care on my long journey to recovery.

I now just suffer some residual numbness down the left side of my body. This manifests itself in curious ways. The left side of my mouth feels like I have just come back from the dentist, my left thigh is numb and gets cramp and my left hand feels like someone has stuck it into a wall plug. It fizzes constantly, so I cannot type with two both hands because I have no feeling at the end of my fingers. Thankfully, epileptic dugs dull the sensation, but they make me very tired.

My stroke ‘journey’ was covered in an ITV Calendar journalist Emma Wilkinson, the granddaughter of the late Jack Charlton, on the 50th Anniversary of Airedale General Hospital, where I spent four and a half weeks in rehabilitation. https://www.facebook.com/AGHWard5/videos/611580986145045

I was asked by the Stroke Association and the combined stroke teams of Airedale General Hospital and the Bradford Royal Infirmary, where I am a stroke ambassador, to document my experience so that it might help others.

This is a shortened version of my story which first appeared as a six-part blog on Facebook. It has been shortened here to three parts. I hope it gives a message of hope to stroke survivors and the friends and family of stroke victims.

Before my stroke I have to admit that I wasn’t a happy go lucky kind of guy, but the after effects of my stroke mean that fighting depression is now a daily battle.

It is difficult to describe and define, but I often dream that some AI character has mangled with my brain.

Without much warning I can be happy one minute and depressed the next. I feel constantly tired. I can be alert one hour and then feel like someone has unplugged me from the mains, so my body feels as active as a dying mobile phone. But I am learning to cope.

I need to keep my brain active to stave off depression. I have days when I just cannot get up from my bed in the mornings because I have lost the will to face another day. This is not helped by the fact my sleep patterns are all over the place.?

I have days when I am very motivated, like today, writing this post and others when I feel incredibly low. It’s been tough keeping sane, like it has for many others in this Covid-19 world.

The Things Blokes Don’t Talk About

Guys of my generation, the post WW2 baby boomers, tend not to chat about things troubling them. Nor do they easily own up to personal frailties or have a close circle of male friends that they can talk to about private matters, like their state of mind.

Men tend not to have a network of close male buddies that they can call on for help or support.

Only now are men coming forward to talk about their mental health. I have seen that for myself in the young men I have taught at university. It’s a welcome development because, while being open and honest about these things is not easy, it’s helpful to talk about them.

The Stiff Upper Lip Hasn’t Helped

I am just a generation away from my dad who served in World War II. He never talked about the stress, strain, nerves or carnage that he witnessed at Dunkirk in 1940. So I guess I learnt from him that revealing your innermost feelings was not something that men should do.

I also lamely blame it on my early 1960s all-boys boarding school culture during my teenage years. I had to join the cadet force where we learnt to shoot using WW1 Lee–Enfield bolt-action rifles.

Today this kind of secondary school activity would seem bizarre. The type of thing that some far right gun toting Republican group in the USA.

Learning to shoot in mock battlefield conditions on Salisbury Plain was there to instil that man’s man ethos in 14-year old boys.?

How so very stupid, so very short sighted. Now men can cry, thank God. We can show our emotions and we are not thought the lesser for it.

Women Are Far Better At Nurturing Friends.

Women are far better at keeping and nurturing their friends. Caroline, my wife, has a number of groups she works hard at keeping – the gym girls, the bistro girls, choir girls, book club girls and old nursing pals. (Their Skype chats are hilarious – nurses see and hear so much!)

Many men, me included, do not have these kinds of associations. My students were my network, and since retirement I feel bereft without teaching and mentoring them.

The Strain That Strokes Put On Families

The biggest toll though is the strain and worry that strokes put on families. It has been exceedingly difficult for my wife and two sons. They have at times had to put up with a very crotchety and moody person. But they have born my burden on them with great dignity and grace. Even here Airedale General Hospital reached out to them. I have never ever come across this much care and compassion before. I am truly fortunate though; Caroline and my two grown-up sons have kept my head above water.?

My Lifeline Of Friends

My other lifeline have been my friends in Cononley, a village just outside the Yorkshire Dales market town of Skipton in North Yorkshire. They have been wonderfully supportive during my recovery. Cononley is a strong and compassionate community where residents look out for each other.

I am by nature quite a private person more used to inner city living where you barely know the occupants of the flat below you let alone people living in the same street. So coming to a village where residents greet you in the street is still a welcome novelty even after 25 years of living in the village. Even our local refuse collectors (bin men) have asked how I am doing. That’s not something you wouldn’t find in London.

The acts of kindness shown in cards, handwritten letters and emails I have received and donations to buy specialist equipment for stroke victims at Airedale General Hospital has been astonishing.

The support has come from unexpected corners of the world too. From Hong Kong through to the United States, more locally in the United Kingdom and in my own back yard, God’s own country, Yorkshire. Friends, former clients, work colleagues and journalists I have known for over four decades have been generous to a fault.

My Wellbeing College

I am not a fan of ‘wellbeingness’ or wellness (horrible word). How can we be or feel wellness in this terrible Covid-19 pandemic?

But, and it’s a big BUT my GP practice, the Fisher Medical Centre, has suggested - as I live in the Craven district of North Yorkshire - to go and try the resources of the MyWellbeing College.

It’s a free NHS service which sets out to help people manage everyday problems such as feeling low, having problems sleeping, feeling anxious and experiencing stress.

MyWellbeing College has a wide range of learning opportunities to help people through life’s ups and downs. You can enrol at https://bmywellbeingcollege.nhs.uk/