There is hope

Just quickly, there is hope—because I’ve lived through something I never expected at 31. 29th January. It was lunchtime, and I was at home. I got up off the lounge, had a buzzing ear noise but suddenly, I lost my balance like I was inebriated and collapsed. As I was falling to the floor, I tried to speak, slurring, "Dad, I think I'm having a stroke." My dad, who had just finished a night shift and was jet-lagged, didn’t hesitate. He said, “Stay there, I’ll get an ambulance.” It’s ironic because earlier that morning, I had asked him if he’d had a stroke because he seemed so out of it.

There I was on the ground, my left side numb paralysed, the right side of my face I could feel drooping, and my speech slurred. But no-one noticed and was hard to communicate. I was sweating bullets, and deep down, I knew it was serious. The ambulance arrived quickly, but to my disbelief, they thought it was a mental health episode. They asked me if I wanted to go to the hospital. I said " I don't want to, but I need too."

In the emergency room, the doctors still thought it was mental health. Fortunately, they sent me for a CT scan. They asked me to stay still but it was uncontrollable movement. Almost two hours after the symptoms started, they finally identified a blood clot in my cerebellum. They administered a clot-busting drug and rushed me, lights and sirens, to North Shore for a clot retrieval procedure. My vision and tremors were bad but only I could see and feel.

Lying on the operating table, I remember trying to communicate that I just wanted them to put me to sleep, and I knew I might either wake up or not. I wasn’t scared of dying—it was the thought of being paralysed for life, needing permanent care, and the worry of how it would impact life that weighed on me. I knew worse case scenario I join my mother and grandparents.

When I woke up, the first thing I noticed was that I could see out of my eye, and my face wasn’t numb or paralysed anymore. I was shivering from anaesthetic . Within three days, I started getting feeling back in my left side, and I was gaining strength. Incredibly, I was running again in the ward. I was discharged within seven days. Although I still had some twitching and minor movement issues, I improved day by day. I did every exercise I could find online for my symptoms, even tried rehab for a few weeks.

But emotionally, I wasn’t okay. I cried every few days, sometimes every week, questioning, “Why me? How did this happen?” "Could It happen again" It was even more frustrating when they couldn’t find a cause—no high blood pressure, no hole in the heart, no high cholesterol. I became part of the 20% whose strokes are cryptogenic.

In hindsight, four days before the stroke I said to my father I feel tired and weak after mowing, I couldn't finish it. Two days later we went away for the long weekend and I noticed my vision was blurry and I couldn't focus on the TV and read the paper. I couldn't sit still.

Three weeks later after the stroke, I was back at work full-time. Seven months later, you wouldn’t even know I’d had a stroke. I had fatigue early on briefly. I feel so lucky compared to others. Physically, I feel 99% fine with back brain pain and tingles. But the mental battle being so young? That’s ongoing. There’s support out there.