Scrapbook 2016: January 2016

As featured in Guardian Witness, 19.01.16, as part of the Guardian's This is the NHS series

It was one of those days. I was waiting for my line manager to make a decision they were not going to make anytime soon, so I sat down in a quiet corner of a very large office to eat some lunch. Halfway into the second sandwich, a buzzing sound came to my right ear. It was very annoying. Then my vision became blurred. I felt sick. I tried to stand up but the left side of my body wouldn’t cooperate. My left arm flailed around helplessly. My left leg had no strength whatsoever. The buzzing noise in my ear was now a horrible grinding sound. I was having a stroke. Somehow I managed to attract someone’s attention and outline my predicament. Then I was sick in a green recycling bin. Paramedics arrived and I was whisked to A&E, whereupon I was diagnosed as having suffered a stroke. Long story a bit shorter, I had two lots of emergency brain surgery, spent three weeks in intensive care and was finally admitted to a stroke ward, where I then got floored by pneumonia.

Other complications followed (my brain became 'soggy') which delayed the start of physiotherapy and occupational therapy that would normally begin quite soon after stroke trauma, but eventually I became a rehab patient and began the very slow process of trying to piece back together some kind of life worth living. The type of stroke I had knocked out my balance, coordination and fine motor skills. I could talk OK, but sometimes I would get muddled and forget the word that two seconds ago was on the tip of my tongue. I was given regular physio sessions in which I learned such things as how to stand from a seated position. I had occupational therapy that included washing and drying dishes. I had sessions with a social worker to determine my needs when I was discharged from hospital. I had an altercation with a psychologist who wanted me to redefine failure as learning. I never noticed any improvement at the time, but others told me I was making progress. I was in rehab for eight weeks. This is a desperate time for most patients. They want to get home, to get away from the muck they call food, to watch some proper telly. I include myself there, but something happened, something that words could never describe, that makes me feel a yearning bond for that sad hospital day room where the look of joy had clearly done a runner. I visit every year at Christmas time to deliver macaroons for the nurses and the therapy team. I look for opportunities to visit at other times too. If there is ever a day they stop me visiting I will be grief-striken. It means that much to me. This is where my old life ended and my new one began. You bet I feel sentimental about it.

It is three years now since I was discharged from hospital. In the first year I was given intense re-enablement therapy at home that involved learning anew how to do the boring stuff like walking, washing, eating with a knife and fork. I was also admitted to a vocational rehabilitation clinic where they figured out how I might be able to plug back into the workplace (I was not able to return to full-time employment). In the second year I ‘rejoined society’ by doing some voluntary work in education. In this I was assisted by my employer (the Guardian), who behaved with great decency and compassion all the way through my ordeal. This, I discovered later, is not always the case. The third year was pretty cool. I continued with my voluntary work and found a spiritual home at Submit to Love, the art studio of the brain-injury charity Headway East London. Art has been a remarkable aid to my recovery. Very slowly, things can only get better. Scratching my ear with my left hand was once a dangerous undertaking. Now it is just a challenge. I am what I now am because of the nhs. By some process of magic, its ethic surfaces in practically every corner of my day-to-day life, and scarcely a minute goes by when my mind is not boggled by the astonishing power of the goodwill that can pass from one citizen to the next. This is the nhs.

LINK

https://witness.theguardian.com/assignment/56968e65e4b0831c476248e2/1889067