Last night was the Stroke of Art launch at the Arthouse Hotel. It was a classy affair, and I even broke out of my usual uniform of jeans and joggers for it. There was a silent auction (I wanted to bid on the Ashes urn, but I’m low on funds to even pay for my personal trainer), a live auction, and some speeches from the ambassador of Stroke of Art, Judith Halliday and the CEO of the National Stroke Foundation, Dr Erin Lalor. I had a short speech as well, and almost stacked it coming off the stage. I’m just the height of sophistication, really.
My speech from last night:
The theme of this art exhibition is “faith, hope and courage”. I wrote this on my postcard, but I feel like I should say this again. I really don’t think I’m particularly courageous or amazing. I think what happened to me was testament to the saying that shit happens.
My name is Jen. I’m 24, and in December last year, I had a stroke. The medical phrase on my hospital discharge letter was “right occipital haematoma and associated subarachnoid bleed, left tempero-occipital venous infarct with haemorrhagic transformation, superior sagittal sinus thrombosis”. In normal English, it was a clot in the back, which caused a bleed on the right side. It left me blind for a day, unable to feel my left side for a week and a half, and in hospital for a month in a half.
There were a number of reasons why I had a stroke. It was a combination of having surgery, having a lumbar drain, being on the Pill, having high blood pressure, and having excessive steroid in my system. Every one of those things was a result, whether directly or indirectly, of a disease called Cushing’s Disease.
The stroke was not really a fun experience. The actual stroke was just incredibly painful. It was the worst headache I’d ever had, but I didn’t realise that it wasn’t what headaches normally are like. I thought I was just a pussy who couldn’t deal with pain.
I recovered really well from the stroke for a few reasons. The two main ones were my age, and luck. I was 23 when I had the stroke, and my brain could recover faster than an older brain, because it’s more plastic. I was also lucky in that the veins, arteries and blood vessels were able to recover from this.
I guess another factor was the fact that I believed that I’d make a full recovery. My boyfriend at the time wrote me a note after the stroke, saying that he knew I would make a full recovery, and it would just take time. I believed him, so not recovering was out of the question.
I’m also very impatient, and I loved my life. I wanted it back. I had just finished uni, been living with my then boyfriend for two months, started at a new and wonderful job ten days before being admitted for surgery. Life was awesome, and I wanted it back more than anything else. My physio and my OT knew this, and they pushed me at every session. When I wasn’t with them, I’d practise the exercises they gave me. If there was anything I could do to get out of hospital sooner, then I was going to do it. I remember hatching escape plans, and loving being taken outside when my boyfriend visited. Fresh air and sunlight is amazing, and you don’t get a lot of that when you’re in the same corner of a hospital room every day.
Now, I’ve been out of hospital for seven months. I’ve got plans to go cycling through Vietnam next March to raise money for the National Stroke Foundation. I’m not fully recovered, but I’m pretty damn close. I still love life, and I think that to still be alive is amazing and wonderful. I didn’t really have faith or hope that I would recover; I knew that I would recover. Not recovering was not an option. I think stubbornness might be a more accurate descriptor. I also don’t think I was particularly brave about this. I did what anyone would have done if they love their life and want it back more than anything else. I didn’t choose for life to take that particular path, but it did. There is no point in being angry or bitter, or thinking that life is unfair. Life *is* unfair, but life is also beautiful and amazing, and it’s bigger and better than these slight hiccups.
