The story of my stroke will hopefully be a source of encouragement and inspiration to stroke survivors who have progressed on such an arduous route, their caregivers, and to anyone not familiar with a stroke. My husband and I were totally ignorant of a stroke until I got one!  I was hemiplegic, bedridden and mute just after my stroke. Through unconventional therapies at the start, music therapy in particular, I re-learnt to speak.

 

No doubt you will find the challenge daunting and feel overwhelmed by the task ahead, if there is one piece of advice I would like to share, it is to take it a step at a time. Don’t look back, take it day by day, at your own pace as long as you don’t stop.  Your progress will sum up like little streams that make big rivers.  It has now been almost five years for me, and I am glad I still find the energy to wake up every morning to try and progress.

 

This is by no mean medical advice and I am not a doctor.  This is just the tale of my personal journey through this detour life threw at me.

 

I had a severe Ischaemic stroke in August 2017 when I was 47 years old while at work in Singapore. My stroke was so colossal, I was lucky to be alive.  Although I had a healthy lifestyle and no pre-condition such as cholesterol or high blood pressure, it still struck me.   My stroke was in the left hemisphere of my brain

(it paralysed the whole of my right side). I was in hospital for 2 months. 

 

But I am slowly getting better. I could not speak initially. By the time I have written this blog (almost four years after the stroke), I could walk, slowly talk out loud, read and write, and engage in fun things, which I wasn't able to do right after the stroke. 

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Although the most visible progress occurs during the first year, don’t stop because the brain is such an amazing organ that keeps recreating or reconnecting neurons.  Just in the last three months, my speech has been more rapid, more accurate, and more diverse. 

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It takes an enormous amount of super-human attempts, because you are so, so exhausted at the start right after the stroke. But it slowly improves with time and with immense physical and psychological effort.

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What you most likely want to do, if you are a stroke patient, is: 

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• Exercise every day (physiotherapy and occupational therapy), otherwise your stroke affected side will grow weaker and sometimes give you acute pain (as it did with me).

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• Start your speech therapy as soon as possible. Never give up - however long it takes. The brain is amazing, and studies showed that one only uses 20% of its power (imagine if you could train to wake up some of its untapped resources).  Contrary to what was thought for many years, if you keep exercising your brain, it continues to make new connections every day, but it can take a long time.

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• Use music therapy, which is excellent (I learnt how to 'sing' when I was still speechless). Utilize art therapy - a great outlet for releasing emotions positively especially when you can’t express yourself verbally. It is very beneficial for all stroke patients.

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• Cognitive function therapy will help considerably, but do it every day or every other day.

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• If you can, try to practice reading aloud, especially for aphasia patients. The stroke can lead to an inability to communicate, as it did with me. I could understand everything after the stroke, but I could not speak out loud.​

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• You may want to do acupuncture up to 6 months after the stroke (which I did not to do, to my regret). 

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