Peter Woods

Before I can begin my story, entitled life after stroke, I will first explain a little about life before stroke. I am male and forty years old with two children, girls named Laura, the eldest at 16 and Sadie, at 14, my wife's name is Gloria, one year older that me and still turns the odd head or two. I am employed by eastern electricity as a Overhead Linesman and have been for the last 20 years, a very physical and when working on live equipment quite high risk job, but very well paid (for North Norfolk)) and I have always enjoyed the job and made some good friends amongst colleagues. Its March 1998 and I have just taken a week's holiday from work, during which time myself and work mates have converted the old bike shed into a gym for our personal use at the Fakenham depot.

So a week off work busy as usual back to work Monday morning 23rd March 1998. Monday mornings are always a bit of a struggle but after a week off ugh!!! Anyway first job back in the groove is a street light fault outside Stead & Simpson's shoe shop in Fakenham market place. Myself and long time work mate Peter Futter, known as "The Foot", trace the fault to the underground cable time. Time to start digging, we get permission to dig, erect the necessary barriers and dig down onto the live cable then stop for a mug of tea and breakfast as usual at 10.00hrs, had that, back to the hole. I do not feel well and begin to fall and stumble about a bit, I need to go to the depot to use the toilet and begin to realise something is not quite right. I ring my wife to ask her for the telephone number of the doctors' surgery at Wells-Next-The-Sea in my home town and say I will probably be home soon as not feeling well. Ring the surgery to see if I can see a doctor, what is it with surgery receptionists? She says if I needed to see a doctor, I should have made an appointment before 09.00hrs that morning, anyways says I should come in and at least a nurse will attend me, ring "The Foot" and ask him if he will drive me the ten miles home to Wells, Peter collects me within ten minutes, actually feel absolutely paraletic now, struggling to balance and voice becoming slurred, ask Peter if I look as bad as I feel, no need for words, I have known him long enough, his face says it all, I look like s*it.

We make it to Wells surgery, Peter catches me as I stumble from the passenger door of the lorry, obvious to all now that I am not well and my doctor and a nurse rush to attend me.

My GP shines a small torch into my eyes, something that happens regularly over the new few months, his diagnosis is a bleed and immediately calls an ambulance and the wife, to give her the news. Whilst in the surgery, the company owned mobile phone rings, the nurse answers it, its Keith, my work mate, ask if he will do my standby for the coming week as I am not very well.

At the surgery, the ambulance has arrived to take me to hospital, they want to stretcher me but my instinct is to walk, they win. So here we are - me lying in an ambulance with the wife sitting beside me, heading for the Norwich and Norfolk hospital. I have the mother of all headaches, paramedic can only give me oxygen mask to suck on, I ask him if this ambulance is one of those Canadian ones that have a nasty habit of falling over, he answers it's a Renault, well that explains the rattles!

Time to reflect on the day so far, what the f**k is happening to me, I can only surmise that its some kind of virus and after a couple of days in hospital all will return to normal, I could not be more wrong, here I am three years later still slightly disabled.

Arrive safely and the N&N Hospital, well done driver! The tests start, lots of doctors asking me to squeeze their hands, and the CAT scan - by now one side of my face has dropped, voice is slurred, cannot walk, or use left arm, after a couple of scans it is decided I should be transferred to Addenbrookes. What a horrible place! - the specialists are very good at the important things like drilling a hole in your head to allow the offending blood to drain off, but the nursing care is absolutely diabolical, sorry girls, but that's my feelings, nurses have been kicked in the teeth over the years by successive Governments I know, but it now seems to be just a job rather than a vocation. I cannot see this changing regardless of how much money is thrown at the health service. Sorry about the soapbox, back to my story.

It has now come to light that I have suffered a brain haemorrhage, commonly know as a stroke, this has left me totally paralysed down my left hand side. I am currently in Addenbrokes recovering after having the aforementioned temporary shunt fitted. A shunt consists of having a half inch diameter hole drilled through the skull with a pipe connected to a container with the other end of the pipe inserted through the hole in the skull, this allows offending blood to drain off, this explanation give a very simple view of the operation, which I am sure in practice is much more involved. I've been returned to the ward, quite scary this as many of the other patients seem to be in a real bad way, one good thing about hospital, there always seems to be someone much worse off than yourself, makes you realise you will hang on to any crumb of optimism when pushed against the wall.

One of the first things I see when regaining consciousness after surgery is an old friend of mine, Peter Tuck; although we used to knock about together a bit when we were teenagers, have not kept in touch, find it strange that he should visit me after losing touch for so long, even more strange that he should be at the other end of the ward and wait, he has a bed on the ward and has visitors of his own.

Turns out he had suffered a CVA, another form of stroke, within a few hours of me having a stroke, so I decide to wander down the ward to have a mardle, but I cannot move, well yes I can move but cannot get out of my bed, my wife is at my bedside and proceeds to tell me what is going on.

All the visitors have left the ward and I lay in the bed and just try and see what movement I have, not good seems like I cannot move any left limb and if I force them to move I have no control of them

Paralysis is very is very strange, we do not realise it but we make many movements without realizing, we just do it naturally, we have been making thousands of movements since infancy and much of the time we run on auto pilot, just sitting in a chair we tense our buttocks to give us balance, when paralysed on one side we lose the ability to sit in a chair unaided. This you soon find out by constantly falling off the chair, the nurses decide to strap you in the chair, this is very painful mentally, to go from a quite fit and strong person, to needing a strap to aid you sitting, the nurses cannot understand how and why I keep undoing the strap and try to stand, always ending in a heap on the floor. Well I have decided to fight, I cannot curl up in a ball and ask why me? I intend to walk again. Its strange the tricks your mind will play on you, one day laying in the hospital bed still with various pipes attached I realise that the rails on the side of the bed are raised to stop me falling out, this offends me, am I in such a bad way that I may fall from bed? - only one thing to do, over the top! I proceed using my right arm and leg to drag myself to the top rail and bungy jump from the pipe over my head, ouch!!! apparently nobody has done this before, that I can believe - but at least I know I still have the determination to beat this Nightmare.

Addenbrookes decide its time for me to return to Norwich Hospital, this must be a relief for my family, wife in particular, as the 140 mile round trip to visit each day must be a real pain.

Back at the N&N on the Irstead Ward, have a side room attached to the ward after settling into my new home, for the next few weeks. Seems quite comfortable and the privacy is nice after the hectic time at Addenbrookes, strange things seem to begin happening, why have I got two TVs in my room? This question really plays on my mind, why 2 TVs? The team of four doctors arrive in my room to carry out some tests, the results prove that the brain damage, caused by the stroke, has left me with double vision.

Well two TVs for the price of one can't be bad, double vision is a horrible complaint, but we find that by covering one eye I can see normally. The hospital supply me with cotton wool pads and sticky tape for covering my eye, this is not very practical and my eldest sister Gill brings me an eye patch to wear, this is black and I look like a pirate, some people find this amusing and make sarcastic comments, children I can understand, but adults to find my plight amusing really does annoy me. Whilst in the N&N I begin some quite intensive physiotherapy, and its not long before I am walking with the aid of a sick, staircases are a little scary to negotiate especially if there is not a right hand rail, after a couple of sessions with the OT, it is decided that I should be allowed home for weekends for good behaviour, this is lovely for me but returning to hospital the following Monday is very hard.

The doctors are doing their rounds again, as usual before leaving, ask if I have any questions, I ask if I can fly they look at me with a stunned expression, they obviously require an explanation, I say, not by flapping my arms, I mean in a plane. "Have you a pilot's licence?" they ask, "no, can I take a chartered flight to foreign climes for a holiday?!", "that should be ok" they say. Its moments like this that make me question exactly who is brain damaged here. Another moment that I recall as amusing , my wife brought me in some new jym jams. When changing into these at bedtime the jacket seems to have the buttons at the back, so I ring the bell for assistance a nurse appears promptly, I explain that these silly new pyjamas button up at the back, she says "no you have got them on back to front", moments like this make me realise it is me with the brain damage - heh heh! It is decided that I should try a different type of footwear from slippers as normal shoes may be easier to walk in, the wife brings my trainers in, I have really been struggling to dress myself mornings trying to put socks on with one hand is a real pain, now I will have to learn to tie shoe laces again, I don't sleep at all well that evening as I can think of little else than planning how to tackle those shoelaces the next morning. I can remember the feeling of achievements at the age of about 4 years when finally conquering the dreaded shoe lace bow, here I am 36 years later starting all over again.

The N&N have decided that they have had enough of me and after about 5/6 weeks in hospital it is arranged for me to be transferred to St Michaels Hospital at Aylsham, this area's main rehabilitation unit for stroke and head injury victims, the transport for this journey is a hospital car rather than an ambulance, in conversation with the driver, he tells me that St Mikes is a pleasant hospital and that it has a swimming pool, I imagine going for a dip before breakfast, it turns out to be a small therapy pool which I never get the opportunity to try out.

It is unfair to compare the previous two hospitals I have spent time in over the last few weeks with St Michaels, but as hospitals go this must be one of the best around, the food is excellent, it is surrounded by lovely grounds and the team of staff are faultless.

Each day during my stay here I attend the room known as the gym for a session of physiotherapy and OT both of which help me towards some form of normality. I cannot praise the staff here enough, as over the next few months they guide me through some very difficult times.

I am discharged early in May of 1998, but return once, sometimes twice a week as an outpatient, for physio, OT and regular appointments with a psychologist. Time passes and I can walk again without the aid of a stick. To dispose of the stick has been a goal of mine for sometime and to achieve this is quite rewarding.

I have now been off work due to ill health for several months and some extremely difficult decisions lie ahead with regard to work, the company want to know if I am capable of returning to my former employment and request that I attend an appointment with a doctor of their choice, to be assessed. This I do, to be told that I was not fit to return to work. This was the outcome I had expected, but the pain was almost unbearable, I now know that this was the right decision as three years after the stroke I am still not capable of doing such manual work. This does not alter the fact that at the time, this was the hardest thing I have had to come to terms with so far.

Walking without a stick now, every morning to shower, dress myself and have breakfast, is physically and mentally draining and after completing these everyday tasks I am exhausted and need to sleep. I need to build my stamina, so to achieve this I set myself the challenge of riding a bicycle, swim at the local pool and join the local gymnasium.

Swimming is something I learnt many years ago at the local school pool, learning to swim at an early age is a must when living on the coast, and again to return to something that was learnt many years previously, yet be so wary, is in itself quite a challenge, the pool being the same one that I learnt to swim in, is familiar and at 5 feet deep at its deepest point and with me standing at 5 feet 10 inches tall hopefully there will be few problems. Anyone requiring exercise, swimming is fantastic as the water helps to support the body, using polystyrene floats as resistance to you pushing them below the surface of the water beats anything I have previously tried.

Now I have retired from my employment with Eastern Electricity on ill health grounds, I start to consider the future employment situation, I decide that I would like to try self employment settling on the idea of a car spares and accessories shop in my local town of Wells, St Michaels suggest I take advice from Norwich Enterprise Agency Trust, an appointment is made, for one to one business planning course, of which I duly book up and attend.

There are about 12 people in total on the course all different age groups and backgrounds, and all about to embark on the road to self employment, whilst talking to the group, I find they are all computer literate and talk about PCs and their programmes as I would talk about last night's TV, this makes me decide to take a basic starter course in computing, something I enjoy more than I expected and again would recommend to all.

To attend the business course, I use public transport for the ten mile journey into Fakenham by the time the computer course comes round I am driving again albeit short journeys only. Up until now, my father, who has retired from work has been driving me everywhere, when required, for me to drive the ten miles to Fakenham, sit at a PC for two hours and then drive home is exhausting, but all these things help build my stamina. It still amazes me that what used to be everyday routine things now take such concentration and thought power to complete, but I slowly notice that some things become easier and use this as a gauge to my recovery.

It is now June 2000 and all my thoughts and plans are aimed towards starting in business, a shop becomes vacant in my home town of Wells and I am luck y to secure a rental agreement for the aforementioned property.

Woody's Autoshop is open for business on Monday 3rd July 2000, after the last few months in which I have visited hell, shaken the devil by the hand and said see you another time, this is a very proud moment.

The business is doing almost exactly as I had anticipated and at times things are going so close to plan that I expect to take a fall at any moment.

I can only hope that I avoid the fall as this little shop has given me direction and purpose to it all that I desperately needed.

So this is life after stroke, I have learnt to walk again, use a knife and fork, ride a bike, swim, drive my car, started my own business, what next maybe I will write a short story entitled Life after Stroke and see if anyone would like to publish it.

Thanks to Peter for sending in his 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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