Understanding fatigue

This podcast series is part of Stroke Foundation’s Young Stroke Project.

Episode 12, 15 May 2025 (Duration: 0:42:06)

In this episode, David Flood shares his journey of understanding and managing fatigue after stroke.

Dave made himself the subject of his Master of Counselling research, exploring his own experience with post-stroke fatigue and how he learned to manage it. He’s now a qualified counsellor who supports other young adult survivors of stroke.

Find more about managing fatigue, and other Young Stroke stories, tips and resources at young.strokefoundation.org.au/life/fatigue

Transcript

Welcome to the Young Stroke Podcast.

This is a podcast for young survivors of stroke and their support crew.

The advice given in this podcast is general in nature. Discuss your unique situation and needs with your healthcare professionals.

This series is presented by Australia's Stroke Foundation and funded by the Australian Government Department of Social Services.

Hi hello! Welcome to Episode 12 of the Young Stroke Podcast: Understanding Fatigue.

I'm Sophie, and I’m recording this episode on the lands of the Wurundjeri People of the Kulin Nation.

In this episode, I’m sharing a conversation I had with David Flood about his journey of understanding and managing fatigue after stroke.

Dave made himself the subject of his Master of Counselling research, exploring his own experience with post-stroke fatigue and how he learned to manage it. He’s now a qualified counsellor who supports other young adult survivors of stroke.

Here’s my conversation with Dave.

Sophie: So welcome, Dave. Thank you so much for joining me. Can you maybe tell us about what your life was like before you had your stroke?

Dave: Yes. So, life was very busy before stroke. I enjoyed being busy. I always had, like, lots of things on the go. I mean, life. So, just before my stroke, I was for work, I was managing a drug and alcohol rehab. So, I was sort of doing part, part management, part counselling, as part of my role there.

It was like a place where, yeah, guys would come to, like, live in a program where essentially they had an opportunity to get away from drugs for a while and an opportunity to kind of process what had been happening in their lives that had led them to drug to drugs. So I was doing that, which was like, I enjoyed it heaps.

It was it was good fun, but very full on. I was also studying full time , sorry, half time. At the time, I was working on my Master of Counselling at that point, and I had a busy family life, too. So, yeah, I'm married to Kay, and we've got three kids who at that stage were sort of mid to late teens.

So life was very, very full and and busy.

Sophie: Yeah, it sounds very busy. What, how has stroke, I guess impacted your life or how has it changed it? Like, is it still as busy as it was before?

Dave: Okay. So when I experienced my stroke, it kind of like, put the handbrake on the life, in a big way. Like, I was forced very quickly, or immediately really, to have to slow down a lot in life. So for me, the sort of major impact of stroke has been fatigue. There's a little bit of vision loss which doesn't have too much of an impact in general life for me, but, fatigue hit me really hard and has continued to have a really big impact on life.

So I went from like full on all the time in life. Lots of stuff, all the time, to like just doing very short amount, like doing something for an hour to a couple of hours, like I'd be completely wiped out after that, and then not be out to do anything, you know, for the rest of the day or whatever.

So. Yeah, like, it just it slowed me down. And had a, had a massive impact on what I could do and how much I could be engaged in the sorts of things that I'd tended to enjoy doing in life.

Sophie: Did you, did you return to work at the Drug and Alcohol Centre?

Dave: So I never got back to that position. I, I decided probably they held my position for me, but I decided about six months after my stroke that I just that wasn't going to happen any time soon. So I basically told them at that point that it's probably better off replacing me. I did go back to some work, so my wife and I set up our counselling practice about that same point, about six months after my stroke, to kind of just give me the ability to work as much as I felt like I was able to do, so I could take on as many clients as I wanted to, rather than, like, have an employer that would tell me how much I needed to do.

Because I was still struggling a lot with fatigue and and to do to do like any length of work in a day was like too much. So I just yeah short, you know, a session here and there was good for me to engage and stuff, but, but not too much.

Sophie: Yeah. What did, your experience of fatigue, like, what did that look like? Like what would happen when you, I guess, tried to do too much, like. Yeah. How would you describe what that experience is like?

Dave: Yeah, sure. So, the “trying to do too much” was a very frequent thing early after stroke. Like I, I didn't understand fatigue at all. As I think many of us don't when we, when we have a stroke. So I, I initially just tried to kind of push through it as much as I could and like to continue to try and do as much stuff as I as I wanted to do or continue to do the things that I enjoy doing.

But but yeah, like, I just, I just very quickly kind of hit a wall. I get just, like, overwhelmed with tiredness or like, I feel my brain kind of like shutting down and slowing down. So, like, I can normally think, when I'm feeling when I'm not feeling fatigued, I can think fairly clearly and, like, yeah, work through problems and, and things like that. But like as I get more fatigue, my brain like just, it feels like it starts to go a slow motion and like, I just can't think clearly.

And I don't remember things as well as I do when I'm feeling good. And then I start and like, my body starts to get heavy and like, everything just becomes hard until if I keep pushing, I hit like a crash point where I literally can't do anything other than just, like, veg on the lounge watching TV like nothing works properly, either in my brain or in my body.

Sophie: Yeah, I can relate to that idea of just pushing and pushing until you just hit that wall. Yeah. And I think I had a quite a lot of, and still do a lot of frustration, with it and always trying to, I guess, like find that new limit. Yeah. Was it a frustrating experience for you as well?

Dave: Yeah, it was incredibly frustrating. Like, I didn't know how to do life slowly, like I'd never done life slowly before. I like being busy, I’d always liked being busy. The reality for me is, is busyness had actually been like a coping mechanism for me. Like whenever things, whenever, like I wasn't feeling good about things like I would, I would push extra hard to like, do and achieve to try and make me feel better.

So the actual process of fatigue slowing me down would make me feel like more useless or not as good or not like the person that I used to be. And my natural coping mechanism for that would have been to like, dive in and do something to achieve, to make myself feel good again.

But that was actually kind of very counterproductive with my fatigue experience. Like there was like this massive wrestle that sat within me with, with fatigue and wanting to do more, and not feeling good. And by not feeling good, like trying to work harder to make myself feel better. So like it was just a really kind of messy dynamic that sat in me that, I was at war with my fatigue.

And I had like, I hated the experience of it and I hated the restrictions of it. And it made me feel pretty down and made me feel pretty useless and and miserable for at least a period of time.

Sophie: How did how, I guess how long did it take you to kind of figure out that you were having this war with fatigue? Because I think there needs there is this point where you have to, not accept but like, realise that this is what's happening and it's like, okay, I need to to find another way to make this work, to manage this.

Like, when did you kind of reach that point?

Dave: Yeah. It took a fair while, like, probably realistically a couple of years, I think, before I started to really try and understand fatigue differently and not kind of fight against it so much. I think I think what I, what I started to recognise was happening is I’d either be like on full go, like wanting to push through, wanting to just ignore fatigue, wanting to try and do as much as I could possibly do.

But then I'd have some really hard crashes where I like, hit that wipeout point and then couldn't function, which would then make me feel really shit. And then, yeah, like that would kick in that wanting to do stuff again. So like I was and then I'd either get stuck in, like, I've hit like a wipeout point like I've done too much or I’ve pushed myself too hard.

And so it just made me slow down and stop and then so, like, life would become out of balance and I wouldn't do enough. And then I'd get frustrated by not doing enough, and then I'd start to do more again. So like, I just, I like I was either like stopping and not doing enough to make life feel satisfying and fulfilling or doing way too much.

And I just, I couldn't kind of like it took a really long time to just kind of figure out that balance and figure out how to, like, work with that dynamic and, and work with, like, understand what was happening there and learn how to do something differently with that.

Sophie: Do you feel like you've found that balance now? Because you kind of described, the two ends of the spectrum, the doing way too much and crashing and then the doing not enough, and suddenly life feels a bit stagnant. So have you kind of found your little place in the middle?

Dave: It still fluctuates. So, like, I still go through I still go through that same wrestle to a degree. But it's not the same extremes that it used to be.

So I, I try. I yeah, I try to manage it differently. Like I try to view fatigue differently even. I think this is actually probably largely the key to me learning to manage it better, is like there used to be this war and it was like one or the other. It was either fatigue or it was either do stuff and like one seemed to be winning or the other was winning and then ultimately fatigue would kind of stop me in my tracks somewhere along the line.

So there was always, always this wrestle that was going on. But when I could kind of start, and so I hated fatigue because it prevented me doing things that I wanted to do. But when I could start to kind of change my perspective a little bit from hating it, and, and wanting to get rid of it, to like wanting starting to get kind of more curious about it, wanting to like, understand how it works and like, how like how much is manageable and what I can actually still do and what I can engage in.

And when's the right time to kind of slow down and stop. So, yeah, like shifting some of that perspective or like going from ignoring it and pretending it's not there to, and like just wanting to push through all the time to, like, starting to listen to it and just starting to notice it and, and like realising when it was building up and like, what level of fatigue was manageable for me to still engage in life and what becomes too much.

And like, yeah, learning to, to feel like fatigue was kind of ruining my life or stopping me doing the things that I wanted to do to like learning that fatigue was kind of something that actually tries to help me. Like it's kind of like a warning system that's happening in me, in it, and it builds slowly.

So I, you know, there's there's certain things that I recognise in myself when fatigue is building, if I can notice these things when they're happening, rather than getting to that crash point, I can I can stop at the right time. So, like, I just I learned to manage thought the dynamic by just, like, changing the way that I looked at fatigue and rather than hating it and fighting against that, like, like I'm just going to stop to work with it.

I'm going to start to feel it in a different way. I'm going to, it's going to be there whether I want it there or not. So I'm gonna actually show like care and respect and and love for myself in the way that I do it rather than, than this, allow this wrestle to kind of dominate my life.

Sophie: Yeah. You mentioned like recognising when these signs of fatigue are like, starting to show up. What does that what does it look like for you? Like what are some of the classic signs that you're like, oh, I'm pushing slightly too much right now.

Dave: Sure. So, so like, I notice quite like a pretty standard progression that happens in me. So, I initially like I noticed just more numbness. So I've got like a just slight bit of numbness that's in my face all the time, from stroke. But that, like, there's the numbness kind of gets more and I get like, tingling and stuff that happens in my cheek.

And then I will start to, like, get this sensation in my jaw, and my jaw kind of gets tight. And, like, I start to feel like a heaviness that starts to come into my body where it's like, okay, moving around, it's like harder. I start to notice, like my thinking kind of just like changes a little bit.

Like, I think that just feels like, like as in I take in information and then it's just like it feels like the cogs just turn a bit slower in my brain. So like there's this progression of build up of these, of these symptoms that I feel, and so I recognise, like once it starts to impact, like my thinking, it's like, hey, that's getting too, too far, like, that’s moved too far up the scale.

And if I keep pushing, I'm going to hit that crash point. But if I like, I allow the like just some of the numb sensation and changing and tingling like that, I can still I can operate ok at that level. So I just notice that. But once it starts like building, it's like like I know I need to just like stop and have a bit of a break and like take some stress out of life for a little bit until I can kind of calm back down.

And then once I've like resettled and everything's kind of feeling like, ok I can actually reengage in something again later. But as it's learning that kind of dance and that balance, for me, has been like super helpful to be able to engage in as much as I can in life.

Sophie: Yeah. Do you, because I have vision changes from my stroke as well. And I feel like sometimes when I'm pushing too much, I feel like my vision changes a little bit. Do you experience that as well?

Dave: Yeah. So I notice that with reading. So I wear glasses normally for reading, but I if I don't have my glasses on and I've got some level of fatigue, like I won't see very clearly and yeah, that would progressively get worse. There’s also some taste stuff, like I noticed I get some changes in my like the taste in my mouth, particularly as fatigue gets really strong.

Like I just get like a weird kind of taste in my mouth. So, okay, that's that's another clue that fatigue is getting right up there. So yeah, there's there's lots of like, yeah, changes like sensory stuff that, I've heard lots of people share that they experience that that occurs as, as fatigue builds for them.

Sophie: Yeah. You, I know that you recently completed your Master in Counselling and you were looking into, I guess, your own experience of fatigue as part of your studies. Are you able to tell us a little bit about that?

Dave: Yeah, yeah. So I after I experienced strokes, after I experienced my stroke, I, was like three quarters of the way through my Masters when that occurred, and I, I was doing a practical subject at the time, which was like, working with clients, counselling subject. So I, I continued to study at that point. I did that subject.

They were, my uni was super flexible with me and just allow me extra time to kind of it was just clocking up a certain amount, like, counselling hours. So I could continue to do that through the counselling practice that I was doing, as well as the counselling centre that the uni ran. But then I had like one subject left, which was a research-based subjects, and I was really concerned and worried about being out to get that finished.

So I actually put my, my, study on hold for a couple of years after I finished that practical subjects, because I didn't think that I was going to be able to do it realistically. I thought, like, I knew that that process of like reading academic papers and translating that into, like essays and doing like research type stuff, like that’s full on brain work that is very fatiguing for me.

So yeah, I put study on hold, and then I ended up going back a couple of years later, and I and I, I did that research project and I did it in a really slow, slow and manageable pace. But I was also able to, choose a topic that that worked for me. So essentially I became the the subject of my own research.

And I applied, various like, counselling theories and approaches to like how I learned to manage my fatigue well. So I basically I spent like a couple of years just like, really reflecting really closely on what was happening in my whole fatigue experience for me and learning to make sense of it and learning how to effectively work with that rather than kind of fight against that.

Like we've kind of talked a little bit about already.

Sophie: Wow, that's so cool. Being able to be your own research, topic. Yeah. How how did like yeah, cause you put your study on hold and then you went back to it. Did you find it really challenging to get back into, into study? Like was there like fatigue wise but also like you were balancing, you know, being a father, working, everything.

Like how did you how did you do that?

Dave: Yeah. So yeah. Look, it was challenging. I decreased some, like, I let work drop off, like I continued seeing a few clients here and there, but I let a fair bit of my work drop off so I could focus more on study. And my kids are all adults now. So there was more sort of space for or less less..

They don't need me as much as they used to. So yeah, there was there was a little bit more space in my life, which was which was helpful. I also kind of like gave myself, like, I had no lost proposition in it because I could focus on something that I wanted to do and was beneficial for my own healing.

It was kind of like I went into it with, if I don't even finish this, it doesn't matter. This is going to help me to learn to understand how to work with fatigue more effectively. So even if I can't complete the academic stuff, I'm going to win by doing it. And that was that was a really helpful approach to go into it with. The reality was like, there was lots of great learning.

I love the learning process. I love the reflection process in doing my study. I found writing the papers connected, connected with the study like really hard. And I did like, it was just a really slow slog. Like I just needed to give myself like an hour every day that I had that I didn't have work, or something that was kind of going to be using a fair bit of energy, so like it was just slogging, slogging away an hour at a time, day after day, like literally for years.

To, to get what I needed to get done. And that was hard. But, like, it felt so amazing when I got to the end of it. It's like. Like I was. Yeah, such a big achievement to push through something that felt incredibly challenging.

And and like, something that, you know, was, was really stretching, but I just, like, I just keep working at it, and I just, like, kept going and kept going and, and and when I got there was, it's so good to get there.

Sophie: Yeah you just kept chipping away at it. Like one day at a time. Yeah.

Dave: Yes, yes.

Sophie: It sounds like the university must have been really supportive as well then. Like, like being able to take as long as you needed. That's pretty, that's pretty cool.

Dave: Yeah, yeah, they were super supportive of mine. They wanted to see me get through, like I'd done really well with study up until that point. And like, I had some really good relationships with, with some lecturers and stuff there. So yeah, they were all kind of cheering for me, in the process, which was, was lovely.

Yeah. Yeah. So I mean, yeah, it was great. It was, it was a really positive experience, although it was super hard.

Sophie: Yeah. Okay. So you've got this experience as a counsellor, you've now got a Master in Counselling, and you've got all of this experience and knowledge about fatigue. I guess how how has all of this, everything that's happened since your stroke, how has that kind of changed the work that you do now? Maybe you could tell us a little bit about what it is that you do do now.

Dave: Yeah sure. So, so, yeah. Like what I've started to do since I've finished my studies, I'm just, moving my counselling work from kind of general counselling support, which is what we established our a business to do, to, to just wanting to focus more specifically on supporting people after they experience stroke, particularly in the young stroke, sort of 18 to 55 ish age range.

I've, I've had to live through something that's been incredibly challenging for me. I've had to work really hard on myself to get to a place that I feel good and positive about life again. I've had to learn how to manage something incredibly challenging with with fatigue. I've had to kind of, like, go through that process of rebuilding my life.

So these these experiences combined with, like my previous experiences of supporting and working with other people, like, it just feels like bringing that all together. And combining that kind of clinical background with my lived experience. Like, it just it feels like the right fit. And I can't do the same amount, like I can't work with clients all day, every day like I would have in the past.

So in the in the short amount of work that I can do in a week, like I just want to do something that feels really meaningful to me and something that I feel like, I've got a good grasp on and something that I feel like I'm really able to support other people well in. So. Yeah. I've, I've shifted my focus and that's and that's what I want to be doing going forward.

And I've just started to connect with some clients in this space and I'm really enjoying it. It feels it feels really good.

Sophie: I just know that so many young survivors of stroke struggle with their fatigue and so many want answers and solutions. So yeah, I just imagine people queuing up outside your door to be like, tell tell me how to fix my fatigue.

Dave: And like, I don't think it's, “tell you how to fix your fatigue”. I think it's so, like, can I journey with you to try and understand what your fatigue experience is like? And can I journey with you to help you to see that even when you experience fatigue, you can still engage in life and still enjoy life.

You just might need to look at how maybe there's some different ways that you need to do it, from how I used to do before. Or how can I help you to journey in appreciating or learning to show like care and respect for yourself? Because you experience this fatigue because you've been through something incredibly challenging and traumatic in your life and experiencing a stroke.

So like how you can show care and respect for yourself in the really tough stuff that you've been through. So it's it's a journey together.

I don't, I don't have like, “do 10 things and you're going to be great with your fatigue”, but I but I can I can use both my what I've learned from books, as well as what I've learned from living it, to help people reflect on what's happening for them and, and find some practical and helpful ways forward that that hopefully can give more hope and more, opportunity to engage in life as much as possible within the limitations and challenges that that fatigue, and other stroke challenges, sometimes bring.

Sophie: Yeah, I think that's a really important like and subtle like, shift in perspective. That idea of like instead of like trying to fix it and like trying to fight with it and you're in a war with your fatigue. It's like, how can I compassionately look at that, look at it, and I guess work with it? Yeah, yeah, work with it rather than against it.

Dave: I kind of look at that in the sense of like, it's, it's there anyway it's going to be there anyway, whether I, whether I want it to be there or not. So like, rather than pretend it's not there and just push ahead or rather than like ignore it or hate or, or whatever, like if it's going to be there anyway how about I can just be there with it.

How about I can work with that the best that I possibly can? Because the fighting and pushing away, all that's doing is adding to the fatigue anyway.

Sophie: Yeah. And that that change in perspective must be so beneficial for your mental health as well, to not just be constantly feeling down on yourself and like, fighting against this thing that you don't have a whole lot of control over right?

Dave: Yeah. Correct. Absolutely.

Sophie: I'm curious, because I'm in kind of a similar position. So, I was working in kind of one field before my stroke, and then I had my stroke, and now I'm, of course, working in the stroke space so like, my 9 to 5 is essentially, stroke. So, yeah, I'm curious, like, how how do you feel about the fact that this thing that happened to you has become a part of your, your work, and your your your 9 to 5?

Yeah. And like, how do you kind of manage that? Because essentially it's like this traumatic, traumatic thing that happened to you. And you've got to kind of, you're reminded of that like constantly when you're at work. So yeah, how do you how do you manage that?

Dave: Yeah. So I think a couple of things connected with that. Early after stroke, I wanted like, I desperately didn't want, I like I never connected with support groups and stuff early on. I didn't want to be defined by my stroke. I didn't want that to be, like, part of my identity, of who I was.

The reality was I actually didn't really have a choice. It was there any way. And by just ignoring it or avoiding it, all I did was kind of isolate myself. Because, and when I learned to kind of connect with, with other stroke survivors and things like, you know, I found support and community in that which was which is really helpful.

So, So, yeah, there's there's that. And then so, yeah, in, in, in working it through, it's like, this is part of my journey. It is a big part of my life. It does impact every day for me. In terms of the way that I need to live and how I consider life going forward. So.

It it kind of like it just feels like it makes sense to me to, to use that and, and to bring like my skills and giftings from before life, like before stroke life and you know current life, stroke life like after stroke life, together. It is hard in some ways, like you do journey with people and you see people recovering maybe faster or better then your own recovery has been.

And that can be painful. But I've intentionally taken a fair bit of time before I dive into this, this support. I needed to give myself my own healing time before I can effectively journey with other people in their in their healing. It's kind of like if if someone sharing their pain and their challenges is is triggered, triggering my own pain and challenges all the time.

It's not that it's not there, and it's not that I don't feel it at all, but it's not at the intensity that it's going to affect me in being a good clinician. So yeah, I feel like I'm far enough in my own recovery that, that I can be effective rather than negatively impacted by it.

Sophie: Yeah. That's great. Because you've been involved in some research projects as well. Is that right?

Dave: Yeah. Yeah. So, so yeah I've I have been and I'm currently involved in a fatigue education program that's, that's been developed and we're doing some, we just finished a thing, finish some testing on that at the moment. And we were exploring more funding opportunities to kind of keep that that work rolling now.

So again, I just had the opportunity from a lived experience perspective to feed into, some, some ways of working with fatigue after stroke. And I've worked with, yeah Young Stroke Service in assisting kind of developing and building that service.

Sophie: Did you get involved in research like quite soon after your stroke or did you, again, kind of take that time to process to, to come to terms with everything that happened, before diving into, into research?

Dave: The research stuff yeah, it was like two, three years after stroke, that I sort of started to, to engage in, in that. I think a lot of that was about like wanting to do something meaningful that like, was in manageable amounts of time.

So I couldn't work in the same way that I had been working previously, like in terms of being out able to work full days or whatever. So, and I want to.

No, I think I think realistically lots of it comes back to, I don't want my stroke experience, I want something bigger or greater to come up my experience than just me.

Like I want, I want, like like I think I'm a reasonably kind of switched on and able to self-reflect pretty well. So I've got that. So I want to be able to use that to be helpful going forward. I don't want my stroke experience to be something that doesn't have any benefit in it.

I want to use it for good in some way. So that was part of like that engaging in in research. Okay, I've experienced fatigue. I have the ability to self-reflect pretty well. I want to be able to use that to feed into what some researchers are doing with putting some programs together.

Yeah. So it's it's it's it's using what I've got to benefit, to benefit others. And that makes me feel good about who I am, too. And it makes me feel less of like I don't have the same things to offer because I can't work in the same way that I used to. Like I still have important things to offer and contributing.

So I’ve built a sense of self it me. It makes me feel good about who I am because I still do have significant things to offer. It's just I need to I needed to find different ways to do that.

Sophie: Well, yeah. And it also gives you, I guess, like a little bit of, like maybe powers the wrong word. But yeah, it's like a sense of more, yeah, I guess power over this thing that happened to you because it's like, okay, this like shitty, awful thing happened to me, but I'm going to take an element of that and like, turn it into something positive for myself and someone else.

Dave: Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. Because, because, because the flip of that is just like being stuck in your misery and pain and not seeing any hope or purpose going forward. So it's like, how, like how can I make something? It's not to pretend that it's not painful and hard, but how can I like, transform or shift? Or how can something positive come out of a challenging or crappy experience?

Sophie: Yeah. And I think when you're in it, it's so hard to imagine that something positive could come out of it. But like, maybe you you relate to this, but like, my life is completely different now to it was to the way it was before my stroke. And yeah, I wouldn't have got to where I am now if, if that hadn't have happened.

Of course I'd rather it like never happened, but, yeah, just that idea of, I don't know, do you ever look back and, like, wonder “oh if that never would have, if that never happened, like, what would my life have been like now? Like, I wouldn't have been, you know, helping other young survivors of stroke through my counselling service, I'd be doing something else”.

But do you ever, do you ever think about that?

Dave: Yeah. Yeah, yeah, I, I absolutely do. Like I think and for me I think it's even beyond that work process like I was always so busy in life and I was busy because I, I, I needed to be busy. Like I couldn't sit still I hated sitting still. So the fact that fatigue forced me to slow down, made me learn to sit with myself, which has been like an incredibly challenging thing for me to have to do.

And I've needed to do a lot of my own work in this. And I've worked with some great clinicians who've helped me. But I needed to do my own healing of, like, why couldn't I sit still? Why couldn't I relax and rest? You know, there was there was there was things in me that just needed to be busy all the time to feel ok. So I've done some really deep healing in my life beyond just stroke stuff, through having experienced my stroke.

Now, I absolutely wouldn't wish my stroke on myself again, or anyone else for that matter, to to be able to do some deep healing work. But there has been some, some pretty deep stuff that's happened in me as a result of needing to do life in a different way, as a result of being forced to sit with myself and have lots of time where I'm not able to to do, but I'm just kind of here with me.

So that's been like it's been uncomfortable, but it has created like a there's a bigger sense of wholeness in me then there's ever been. And I don't think that that would have ever happened if if I wasn't forced to do the hard work of healing, that is kind of had was kind of forced on me in some ways, because of my, because of my stride.

Sophie: Thanks for sharing that. Yeah, I definitely can I understand and can relate to to what you're saying. Oh, this has been a really great conversation. I think you've shared, yeah, so many like such beautiful wisdom I think about fatigue and yeah. I just yeah, I just want to go back to I think that idea of like, let's learn to to stop fighting it, to work with it, to move forward, and.

Yeah, but I also really like this, this idea that, not letting your fatigue, like, get in the way of your progress, and being able to move forward and find, I guess, a new purpose, a new direction and pivot, and, yeah, finding a bit of more meaning, out of something horrible that happened, I guess.

Dave: Yeah, absolutely. Thanks for the opportunity to come and chat. It's been, it's been great to, to chat together. And like I think I just I would like to share like in terms of for people listening. Like stroke recovery is hard. It is really hard.

But there is, there is hope beyond like some of the certainly like early on, beyond the pain and the loss that that you, you experience. So yeah, like I, I would just encourage people to, work through the challenging stuff, and know that even if like so for me, fatigue hasn't gone away, it's still very similar to how it was early on for me.

But I can do a lot more because I've learned how to manage it and work with it more effectively. And I think the same is true for other areas of recovery. Like sometimes there’s gains physically and in movement and in speech and things like that, and other times it's not such good gains, and it can be discouraging and hard when you don't see good, good gains and progress necessarily, but you can still build a good and meaningful life, even when there are significant deficits that you do experience, even when there are things that don’t feel like they get better, life can still get better anyway.

Yeah. And like I, I wish I heard that more early on in me when I was maybe feeling discouraged. Yeah. So yeah, I just I want to encourage people, life can get better, you know, connect with people that are supportive and, and encourage you to, to keep moving forward, and not give up.

Sophie: Thank you so much for listening, and thank you Dave for sharing your experience. If you’ve gained something from this episode, please share it with someone else who might find it helpful.

You can find more information on topics relevant to young survivors of stroke on the young stroke website, young.strokefoundation.org.au.

And remember, StrokeLine’s healthcare professionals are available to provide free and confidential advice. You can also call Strokeline, Monday to Friday, 9am to 5pm Aus eastern standard time. That number is 1800 787 653

Thanks again and see you next time!