Tracey Dale

In December 1999 whilst I was working at a very busy company, dealing with the importation and distribution of sunbed tanning lotions, Steve (my then-husband) and I afforded to spend Christmas, ski-ing in France. It was an idyllic setting; snow, mountains, a chill in the air and lots of warm clothing! Unfortunately, only part-way through the week I came down with pneumonia, although at first I thought it was just a very bad dose of flu. I dosed myself up with flu remedies and took to my bed for the rest of the week, only briefly coming out for Christmas dinner.

I barely recovered for the flight home, but I started feeling better on the run-up to the New Years celebrations, so decided to go out with Steve to a party in Sussex. During the evening, I felt very headachy and was sick for what seemed no reason at all. I felt better for when we saw the New Year in, then I drove us back home to Hemel Hempstead.

A couple of nights later, Steve went to Bishop's Stortford to see an old school-friend and stayed the night. I think I felt okay at the time, so waved him off. I don't remember much of my evening (but I guess it was watching TV) and then I went to bed. The next morning (3rd January 2000) I awoke early and decided to get up, but found the left side of my body was extremely heavy. I scrambled about for a few things and then finally managed to retreat back to bed and to sleep.

Steve came back from his friend's in the afternoon. I awoke to him finding me in our bed and asking me how I was. I slurred to him (I never lost my speech, just the ability to articulate myself sometimes) that I suspected I had a stroke. Steve phoned for an ambulance and I was taken into the local hospital, Hemel Hempstead General Hospital.

I spent 6 weeks there: I think my pneumonia relapsed and I spent around 7-14 days being treated for that. I was exhausted as I was persuaded to get back on my feet by physiotherapists and treated by occupational therapists every weekday. I was told to do facial strengthening exercises, sometimes by the speech therapists that came in and I was reduced to food on a drip as they thought I couldn't swallow properly. I was worked hard (and I worked hard!), and I/my body responded - I attribute my fast recovery to my positive attitude during that time - I never realised it would still be hard to recover even now (I was looking at making a complete recovery within 6 months: after the first few weeks of recovery - I was positive it would happen!!). By the time I left hospital, I was walking around almost normally, although became tired very easily, so was supplied with a wheelchair for the short-term.

I spent a further 6 weeks (weekdays) in rehabilitation. However, because that in the early weeks of my hospital stay they concentrated on getting me walking, my left arm and hand were "neglected". (It was slower to "come back to life," after the stroke, anyway). I was "left to my own devices" after the rehab with a bunch of exercises to perform as regularly as I could, pending a reassessment of my abilities later in the year.

However, my motivation was non-existent and I slipped into depression (although I didn't know it at the time), so did not do as many exercises on my arm and hand as I should have done, so it did not really improve much at all - my abilities "plateaued", and so it brings me to the present, where I am looking for motivation to improve my arm and hand still, but STILL finding it hard to find that "get up and go", to do something about it! (I was reassessed in October 2000 and the physiotherapists said that there was nothing more they could do for me as they thought my abilities were too good to warrant further help, yet I was not very dextrous!.....ok, so enough for them to think I would be a "waste of time" - I'd got so far and it was up to me to do the rest, but I haven't! I was never very self-motivated before my stroke - it seems worse now!)

It has been an amazing road of discovery as well as recovery (a poet and I didn't know it!). I certainly feel better for the stroke, strangely enough, although there are a few things like stamina, emotional lability (in the form of anger mainly) and the paranoia of it happening again to contend with still. I guess I'm over the halfway mark to being back to the "old" Tracey, but with renewed horizons!!

I don't feel sorry for myself (on the whole), although as mentioned, I did go through a rather nasty period of depression at one point (meaning: an EXTREME way of feeling sorry for yourself!!), but everything so far seems to have worked out for the best. I "got rid" of the man who didn't love me as post-stroke "me", found a man in the form of Andy who adores me and is willing to work hard, mainly on my psychological effects.

Oh, I forgot to mention work after the "big happening"! Well, 4 months after my stroke, I was recovered enough to take on voluntary work, so I spent 2 days a week doing reception duties at the local CVS organisation. 8 months later, I found out that there was a part-time administration job available with one of the other organisations in the same building, run by Hertfordshire County Council, called Employment Direct. Employment Direct is a group of consultants assisting people with various disabilities into work and I typed up (mainly with my non-affected hand, but trying also with my stroke hand) any communication with/for the clients or for the employers on behalf of the consultants, sorted the incoming and outgoing post, updated and photocopied forms that the consultants used, etc. I stayed with them from January 16th 2001 - October 9th 2002, just before we moved over to Tenerife. I have never felt so supported than as I did at Employment Direct. It was a good place to start being back in the world of employment again, and as it was only a 22.5-hour-week, it gave me plenty of time to rest and recuperate in-between my work days.

And me now? I still don't know why the stroke happened, despite more tests and scans than I care to remember when I was in hospital, but I suspect it was down to the combination of the pneumonia and me being "laid low" for its duration, causing my blood to thicken and then become a clot, the clot travelling to my brain and causing the stroke. I was on a long-haul flight only 2-2½ months before my flight to France, but I don't know whether this has any bearing on the situation I found myself in. Maybe I'll never know.

I know however, that I'm still fighting fits of depression and emotional lability, I'm on aspirin and persantin for the foreseeable future, but on the whole I consider myself lucky to be alive and living a life out in Tenerife, as I so often dreamed of before the stroke. Living abroad is not as easy as many people say - particularly for someone who has recovered to my standard of abilities, but I guess we are "getting there"!

Thanks to Tracey 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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