“I’m not someone who asks for help.”
It happened on a Sunday morning, four days after my 38th birthday. I woke up at 6am and got up to use the bathroom. On the way back to my bedroom, my left foot stopped moving. I remember looking at it and thinking “Why won’t you move?”
Then I realised my left arm wouldn’t respond either.
I knew something was wrong. The thought of a stroke crossed my mind, but it didn’t seem possible. I tried to lower myself to the floor. By that time my entire left side was paralysed, and I was beginning to panic. I could feel the paralysis creeping up my body.
I called out to my fiancé, he rang an ambulance, and within the hour I was in hospital.
I was, by every measure, the last person who should have had a stroke. I was young, fit and healthy. I didn’t drink, didn’t smoke, had no health issues and no risk factors. So, it was a shock to everyone.
I spent four weeks in hospital. While I was there, the only thing I had to do was focus on rehabilitation. I didn’t need to cook, clean, do any laundry or walk the dog. My only job was working hard at learning how to walk again.
But coming home was a different story.
I am horribly independent. I don’t receive help or support with any ease or grace. Once I was discharged, everyone thought I was OK. I put on my best face to support this story and people believed me.
After all, I was mobile, talking, and, on the surface, I looked very well recovered.
But the gap between how I was presenting and what I was experiencing was significant.
Simple things like walking from my bedroom to the kitchen exhausted me. I couldn’t lift a pot to drain it. I couldn’t hang out laundry. I was so worried about falling or having a second stroke that I walked around the house with my phone gripped in my hand.
Having been so fit and healthy, it was frustrating and unnerving to suddenly feel so unsteady.
For me, the brain damage from my stroke was an invisible injury. Because my face looked normal, my speech wasn’t affected and I could walk around (albeit with great effort), people assumed I was fine. And I let them think I was.
Looking back, I probably impaired my own recovery by doing too much too soon. I thought I needed to do everything myself, but I wasn’t thinking clearly. I’d had a brain injury, and that had a real impact on my judgement.
What I needed was for someone to step in before I even got home.
A nurse mentioning Gather My Crew at discharge.
Or a friend who simply set it up for me, without waiting to be asked.
Even having someone take care of a couple of small things each week would have made a big difference, not just for me but also for my fiancé who was juggling full-time work, helping to look after me and do all the household chores and shopping.
If I could give advice to someone going through something similar now, it would be this. Download the Gather My Crew app and set it up before you need it.
Add the people you trust. Have it ready.
Because when you’re recovering from something like a stroke, the hardest part isn’t always the initial crisis.
It’s also everything that comes after. Rehab continues at home. And especially with stroke, your driving license is automatically suspended for at least a month so you lose even more independence, and it can add to feelings of isolation.
Knowing practical support is there, if you need it, can make all the difference.
