Lost for words

I had to learn to talk again

Cheering my students on, I felt a pulsing in my head again.

A Performing Arts teacher at a primary school, I was helping out at the after-school talent show.

Almost home time, I thought. It was March 2017 and I’d had a pounding headache all day.

Certain it was nothing, I’d powered through.

But as I stood there watching the kids perform, I collapsed. Everything went black. The next thing I remember is waking up in Royal Devon and Exeter Hospital.

A thousand questions raced through my mind. How did I get here? What happened? I looked around and saw my dad, Roger, 66. ‘Hey love,’ he said, relieved. I tried to respond but no words came out. What’s going on? I panicked. Sensing my fear, Dad placed his hand over mine.

‘Don’t worry, just relax,’ he reassured me.

I tried to move my right hand but it was frozen. So was my arm and leg. Just then, a doctor walked in. And what he said turned my world upside down.

‘You’ve had a severe stroke,’ he told me.

It’d caused paralysis down the right-hand side of my body. And it’d brought on a condition called aphasia, meaning I couldn’t talk.

I struggled to process everything. I was only 25 and had always associated strokes with older people.

The doctor explained they can occur at any age. But it was rare for someone my age to have a stroke as big as this.

So doctors began running tests to find the cause.

Meanwhile, I tried to come to terms with how much my life had changed.

There was no way I could go back to work.

And a keen dancer, that had been taken from me too.

‘I’ll never be the same again,’ I sobbed to myself.

Over the next 10 days, I had various scans. I was also given seven types of medication to help with pain and anxiety. And I began physiotherapy. ‘With hard work, you could walk again,’ my physio said. So I gave it everything I had. By the end of those 10 days, I was walking with

the help of a frame. I can do this, I thought. I refused to let this stroke rob me of everything. I started having occupational and speech therapy every day, too. And just like my walking, I gave it my all. Finally, my test results suggested there was a problem with my heart. So I had a full body scan and X-rays to look for issues with my ticker.

Holding up my X-ray results, a doctor pointed to a gap on a picture of my heart.

‘Right here is where the hole is,’ he explained. I had a hole in my heart. I’d had no idea and couldn’t believe it.

It was likely that I’d been born with it, but only now was it causing me problems.

The hole had led to a blood clot in my brain, and that’s what had caused my stroke.

I was booked in for an op to fix it right away. Last July, I had surgery. It involved inserting a device into my heart, allowing tissue to grow over it and close the hole.

While I recovered, my speech therapy continued.

Slowly but surely, I began forming words again.

Last August, I was allowed home.

I could walk for short distances but needed a walking stick to help me.

I’m still having daily speech therapy and physio. I have good days and bad. In March this year, I was able to point my toes for the first time.

That might seem like a small thing, but to me it was amazing.

It means that one day maybe I could dance again.

It’s madness to think that my life changed in an instant, and it all started with a headache.

But I know I’m lucky to be alive.

And even though it’s a long road to recovery, I’m certainly no quitter.

It’s madness to think that my life changed in an instant