My Story - Jane Wernham aged 49

It was the evening of Feb.14th, 2000 and, as usual, I was alone, looking forward to having coffee and a chat with a friend the next morning. But things didn't quite pan out as planned

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It all started with some severe facial pain which at first I took to be sinus pain or a cold starting. The thought that it could be a stroke did enter my mind, but I discarded it because my only experience of stroke was that of my grandfather, who had been in his nineties when he died of a stroke, so I reasoned that at only 49 years of age, I was far too young to be experiencing a stroke. As a precaution, I did go and examine my face in the bathroom mirror. The only other thing I knew about strokes was that one side of your face 'froze' or drooped. I looked very carefully. No. My face looked totally normal, but then, very strangely, I felt some very soft feathers in my hand. When I looked at the hand, I was surprised to see that there were no feathers in it, there was just a tissue! As I looked at my hand, I was aware that feeling in my left hand was gradually fading away, until there was no feeling there at all. Perhaps I was in trouble, after all. Maybe this is a stroke. Still, you can make a full recovery from a stroke, can't you? thought I. I still didn't have the wit to call for help. I knew I was beginning to get confused. Who could I call for help? and wouldn't I look silly if I just had a sinus infection or something? The pains in my face were now so bad that I wondered If I'd had an accident in my car, banged my face and forgotten about it. I was getting confused. The main thought in my mind now was to go to bed and sleep, because if I was very ill, at least I knew that my friend would arrive in the morning and help me. I tried not to panic, and to keep really calm. I took myself off to bed, putting a few drops of lavender oil on my pillow to help relax me. I knew nothing more until the next morning, apart from a strange dream, when I saw the left side of my body light up with a with a white heat

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It seemed like just a second later, my friend was there, trying to get me to respond. I couldn't answer. When I tried to open my eyes, I could only see her as an outline. I could hear, but not see or respond. This was how I was to be for the next two weeks or so. I knew things were rather serious when I was loaded into an air ambulance, to be flown to a teaching hospital, some 80 miles away. Here, they ascertained that my carotid artery had dissected and caused damage to the right side of the brain, leaving me with left-sided hemiplegia

. To cut a long story short, five months and three hospital/rehab units later, I managed to return to my ground-floor flat in Cornwall. Six years on, despair and depression about my plight has given way to much more hope about my future, as I have sold my Cornish flat, bought a house in south Lincolnshire and continue to make tiny improvements. With the help of two excellent carers, coming in to my house for about six hours a day. I manage to live on my own. I can now walk a few steps with a quad walking stick and a brace to support my weak left ankle. There is, as yet, no movement in my left arm or hand (frustrating, because I used to be professional musician and can no longer play the piano)but maybe that is still to come!? I live with constant vertigo and the stupid panic attacks that seem to come with severe disability, but am learning, at long last, to trust other people to help me. On bad days, when I ask myself why should I have experienced such a terrible thing as a massive stroke when I was only 49 years old and a non-smoking, non-drinking, fitness fanatic? I guess the answer is, if I hadn't been those things, I wouldn't have been alive now. My love to all you other survivors out there... never give up... things can get better!!

Thanks to Jane for sending in her profile. Anyone else who would like to share their story can send it along with a photograph (if you're not shy!)

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