If it is your husband who is having a stroke, at home, it is very scary.
When you ring 999 and say the words ‘my husband is having a stroke’, it is reality!
Your whole world changes in seconds and becomes a journey into the unknown.
Thankfully help arrived for us in 6 minutes in the form of a paramedic, shortly followed by an ambulance with blue flashing lights.
The ambulance journey and admission to hospital is all a bit of a blur but seems to take forever. You are eager for reassurance and news all the time and beside yourself with worry.
Want the good bit? He recovered well.
Want another good bit? RESEARCH involvement helped big time. While he was in hospital he was asked to take part in a new drug trial. He accepted, so for the next 3 years, every six months he had a full medical. He put the dates on the calendar. He looked forward to the checks, the follow up on his health and the contact with the Stroke Research Team staff. Before each RESEARCH medical he was on a high. He was naturally anxious too but support wasn’t far off. And afterwards, when the results were good, confirmation that he was still making progress – priceless!
It gave him confidence (which is at an all time low after stroke), something to focus on, an opportunity to ask questions of the experts and he felt supported, all because he was involved in RESEARCH. By being involved in RESEARCH he was also able to give something back to those who helped him at a very low point in his life. By his still having contact with the Stroke team, I felt supported too.
Stroke RESEARCH is vital and can be very rewarding.