Jo Richardson

My name is Jo Richardson and on the 17th January this year I had a stroke. I know there is never a good time to have a stroke but to me it came at the worst possible time. I am 18 and had just started my second semester at Edinburgh University. I hadn't even been back a week when it happened.

I knew that I wanted to go the Edinburgh to do Applied Sport Science since I visited the city a few years ago. I looked forward to coming to uni so much. I wanted that freedom, the feeling that I could do anything I wanted and the whole doing everything for yourself! I have always been a very independent person. I never would ask for help unless I really had to. Since having my stroke all that has gone. I go home from uni every weekend and I don't really enjoy the time I spend up here.

Before my stroke I was a very, very active person. I could never understand people who didn't want to do sport whenever possible. I have been playing hockey since I was in year 7 and I have trampoline for even longer. At the monument I can't do either of them and it is slowly eating away at me. I do still manage to coach trampolining but only for about an hour at a time and it leaves me tired for days

My mum has never been too keen on me trampolining, she says it too dangerous. I had my stroke a few hours after a uni squad training session. The doctors thought that, that was the reason that I had had a stroke. They thought it was a trauma stroke (a tear in an artery in my neck). Fortunately it wasn't as if that had been the case I would have never have been able to do sport again. For me there would be nothing worse than that.

After the training session a few of us went to the pub next door to the gym. We had a few drinks and then decided to call it a night. I was the only one going in my direction so I set off down the hill. As I neared the bottom I started to realise that I could see probably out of my right eye. I thought nothing of it really. I could still see forwards and it was dark so I didn't realise that my vision was also blurry. I couldn't see out of my right eye if a looked to the right but still thought nothing of it. Sometime when I have got too much mascara on my eye lashes stick together for a few seconds, so I put my lack of sight down to that.

Very soon after this I noticed that I could only really feel my hip knee and ankle of my right leg and nothing in between. It felt a little bit floppy as I was walking along the street. I hadn't drunk in a little while so I just put this down to the 2 pints that I had, had. I can't really remember the rest of the journey home until I got it to my flat and started to climb the stairs. I kept falling over. My right leg just would not support me. I found it really funny how so little alcohol could affect me so much. It was only 7 at night and there was a Tesco's delivery guy in the stair well as well. He started laughing at me and tuting that I was drunk at this hour.

This is when the piercing headache started. It was like no pain I had ever felt before. I hadn't really eaten anything that day so was also putting the symptoms down to lack of food. I went in to the kitchen where I had planned to cook the lasagne that I had prepared before I went to training. By this time my head hurt so much and my arm had started to feel really heavy and was refusing to work. (just like my leg) I put the lasagne in the fridge with a lot of effort and stumbled to my room. I thought that I was just having a really bad headache so decided that I would stet my alarm for 9 that night have an hour and a half's sleep and then get up on do the work that I needed to do.

I remember just lying in my bed in a semi conscious state with a splitting headache. I don't even remember my alarm going off.

At about 2.00am I really needed the toilet so I stumbled to the bathroom. I got a face cloth drenched it in water, put it over my face and went back to bed. I couldn't sleep so just lay there and by this time I had started to cry uncontrollably. I had no idea what was going on. I was so confessed. Next thing I remember it was 9.00am and I knew I needed to get up and have a shower as I had lectures at 10am, I thought that a shower would make me feel better. By this time I had decided that there was something wrong with my arm and everything else was a result of this. The more I moved my arm the more my head hurt.

Eventually I gave in and rang my mum at work. I couldn't make my mouth say what I wanted it to. She works in a GP surgery and the GP told me I had to phone an ambulance. I really didn't want to; I mean who calls an ambulance for a sore arm and headache? My mum told me to go find one of my flat mates. I stumbled in to Jane in the corridor. Trying to explain what was going on was one of the hardest and most frustrating things I have ever done. I knew what I wanted to say but what was coming out of my mouth was complete gibberish.

The next thing I tried to do was phone an ambulance by dialling 333. I knew something was wrong but I couldn't work out why it wasn't working. The only thing I managed to tell them was that I had a headache and was confused. They said that as it wasn't that serious that they would be there when they could but it would be a while.

When they arrived I knew that there was something wrong with me as they immediately phoned for "backup" saying it was serious. They hooked me up to a load of machines and the next thing I remember I was in the ambulance. I didn't understand why I was going to hospital, I only had a headache!

I was in A and E until 10 that night. I was first put I a bed and given a migraine tablet. That made my headache go away for a while so they put me on a chair to free up the bed sent me for a CAT scan 'just to be safe' and were about to send me home when they put me back in a bed and announced that I had to have an MRI in the morning.

I begged my mum to take me home. I kept telling her I was fine, but fortunately she wouldn't listen. I have now found out that she had guessed what was going on but didn't say anything to me. She just kept telling me I might as well stay as it was late.

Every day that I was in hospital I begged to go home. I hated it. Everyone wanted a look at me! I was an 18 year old that had had a stroke, it interested them!!!

It is now four weeks on and I know little more than I did when I left hospital. All I wanted to do was forget about it and get back to normal BIG MISTAKE!! My family and friends know me as being tough so I wanted to keep up the illusion. I only once cried in front of my mum and that's when the doctor thought it was a trauma stroke and that I would never do sport again.

I kept myself to myself and when I need to cry I did it on my own. I went back to uni too soon! My social life was none existent. I sat through lectures in a complete daze and then spent the rest of my time in my room. I told everyone I was fine and pushed anyone close away from me. I was sick of people making a fuss.

Nobody knows much about young strokes so I didn't have any idea what was normal to feel or if there was a normal way to feel about it. I joked about it with everyone ever since it happened as it made it easier. But then I felt I couldn't talk to anyone seriously as they just laugh it off. I started to think it was unfair to load my problems on others as they were at uni to have fun

I got scared every time I had a headache. I woke up every day with a headache. I felt that everyone else was out there having fun. I keep telling them all that I was allowed out. But it wasn't really true I just didn't think I could deal with it.

However I was really lucky. While researching young strokes I found Different Stroke. One of the young survivors goes to Edinburgh. I meet her. She said that she went through very similar feeling. She helped me so much! Just talking to someone who knows what's going on. As I live in Newcastle up go to uni in Edinburgh, neither hospital really did anything about after care as thought the other was. However after Laura's advice, I followed it up and am back in the system, I still have very little idea about what is going on but I have an appointment in a week!

I hope that my story helps anyone who reads it whether survivor or carer. I have just got to say that what had happened really suck! But no one should have to deal with it alone. I found it so much easier to talk to someone I didn't know. Just don't sit there on your own, because you are not on your own!!

Thanks to Jo 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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