At the end of January 2024, I had a stroke. I am much better know, but there are still some things that is wrong. This post has a collection of some moments from the past year which stood out to me.

Each section is kinda in order of how things happened over the year, but most stories are independent of each other. Some of the reasons for sharing these stories is I find them interesting. We have no idea how our bodies work. But another reason is, people don't tell their stories of the bad things that happen to them enough. I do get an odd sense of calmness from telling my story.

The first hours were not great in hospital. Everything was pointing to vertigo caused by Covid as speech, motor control and cognitive abilities were not affected. There was even talks of sending me back home. But what kept me there was my gate was a bit John Wayne like, they decide to keep me.

Over the night my head started to spin, the room was spinning like nothing I have seen before. I wasn't long before I was violently sick, this was the start. Drifting in and out of sleep. When awake being sick. Hours had pasted before I got to a ward. For me, it was only a few hours, but seemly about 15 hours had past at this stage.

On the way to the ward (I think) I need an x-ray which I had to stand for. I need to be help stand, when standing all my weight was on the machine. Still at this point my mind was sleepy, I was not sure what was going on.

Once on the ward I need to move the up bed head rest to even be able to try seat up, I had lost most of my motor control. Whatever was happening to me was still ongoing. I needed to be help from the bed to a wheelchair, and back again. This was the lowest point.

It was a general ward that I was admitted to and not the stroke unit. In one sense I think for my mental state this may have being one of the best things that happened to me.

When in the hospital they expect you to shower every day, or at least give your self a basin wash. If your unable to manage there is someone there that will help you. I had being in for a while at this stage, walking with a frame, and I felt I could go for a shower on my own. Being able to do this when a few days before I was unable to walk would have being a great achievement.

"would have being a great achievement" should be a clue to this not going well. I don't need to go into the detail of the actual shower, it was hard. While I had control, I didn't quite have enough control to manage on my own. It was after the shower where I failed. It was the getting dressed. I think the heat of the room from the shower, trying to get dressed standing and not get my clothes wet by water puddles that may have being on the floor. I so nearly fell. I burned through all my energy. To get back to the bed I needed to ring the bell and get help. I had pushed myself to far.

Pushing myself to far by having the shower, I reckon it put me back about two days of recovery. Which is a lot and very disheartening. Every cloud has a sliver lining so what is the lining here? From the exercise, I learned I can not push myself pass my limits to far, if at all. I needed to be pushing my limits to get better. Knowing that pushing to harder will cause more harm, you learn to control your want, but also you see how important it is to take time to relax and recover.

There was the one other thing. Help was always there if I needed it. Ringing the bell would bring help, but you have to be willing to except the help.

For context in the hospital ward the bed was about 4 meters away from the bathroom. At the time I did not have good control of the muscles on my right side. Hence needing the frame to walk. But any time that I would go to the bathroom I would get dizzy and nearly collapse.

This one time I realized why it was happening and from knowing why it was happening I could change my behaviour to resolve the issue. So what was happening. I was so focused on keeping my right arm strong to hold me up in the frame, and about how to move my knee and foot to be able to take a step, I was forgetting to breath. 

It may seem like a stupid thing, how could you forget to take breath? Would that not have being a very natural thing to do? To that I would say yes, but you also don't have to think about your balance, and I did for a long time.

It took far to long for me to get an MRI. What makes things worse was the next week a new MRI unit was opened. Of course at the time I was on a heart monitor, that had to be removed, the MRI staff were not very happy with that needing to be done. They were nice people, I think just over worked and under pressure from everywhere.

So you get asked the all the questions. The main one is do you have any metal on you in a shape or form. To this my answer was no, no piercings, no plates, yes to watch, but that was removed and left with the heart monitor, across the hall.

At this point I was starting to be able to move around again. Still getting on to the bed was not easy. They put down a paper like sheet as a covering. This moved around easily which made getting on the bed harder. It is the little things that seem to cause the most issues.

This was also around the time I had the hiccups. They even waited to see if they would stop, I told them they will not. Moving can mess up the scan, so they don't want you to move. Hiccups kind of makes that hard. I was able to control my monition enough.

The give you ear plugs and headphones with music playing. MRI scans are so noisy. A few moments into the scan one of the staff comes rushing into the room and pulls me out of the machine. They are asking me a question but with the headphones and ear plugs I can't hear a word. The question was do you have any metal in my left ear? My answer was no, then they asked if they could check. Nothing was found, and they were happy to send me back into the machine. No idea what they were detecting in their control room.

After the scan they of course ask you how you are. I think I surprised them a bit. I found the whole thing very relaxing. The machine vibrates in kind of pluses which seemed to relax my muscles. For the sound it seemed to calm the mind. I do find it easier to sleep with pink noise, so maybe there is something there. If the scan had being much longer I think I would have fallen asleep.

A small thing that you may not think about, but what about your finger nails. The mind did not really know how to control the body. One thing that I noticed was my finger nails growing. I like to keep mine short, and tend to cut them often. But for maybe the first 6 to 8 weeks after getting the stoke, I need to cut them every week. They grow faster than I ever know they could.

How that all works I don't know, but it is something that you would never considered as a side affected to the stroke. It again shows we don't know how our bodies work. I don't even know what changed to get them growing at their normal rate again.

I am not one for doing nothing, I needed to get back to work. In total I was a bit over a month in hospital and rehab. Took a further month to recover at home, this was enough time for me to start getting stir crazy. Most doctors were wanting me to take at third month off, but I went against their judgement. Main reason, I know where I work, Red Hat, I know how people are treated. If I need time, I could have it no questions asked. I would be aloud to get back up to speed at a pace I could manage.

If I was still working in some of my past places of employment I would have taken the third, maybe even a fourth month to recover in a heart beat. In those places I would have being expected to give a 110 from day one as I would have being expected to catch up on the work that I was out for. 

While this is not about the bad place we have worked, it is about the good places. When things are going good, and every thing is normal we can take for granted the goodness of where we work. I think in the first week that I was back, the only time the work was talked about, and not my well being, was when I raised the topic. Everyone gave me their time, everyone was interested to hear what happened. It was all a bit much truth be told. 

It also helped that when I was going back to work it was around Easter. This meant the first two weeks were shorter than normal, and that I needed. Realistically, I was not fully ready to go back, but I needed to push my limits and at home I was just not able to do it like work could. So for a while I did shorter days, took naps when I felt I needed them. I didn't put myself into a position where a lot would depend on me being a 100%. I was a risk to work not getting done, and like any risk, if you know it is there you can manage it. So I did.

The more I worked the more I could work. Time is the great healer. Knowing that I had to push my limits to increase my limits, but also understand what happens if I push those limits to far to fast, would allow me to recover at a healthy pace. It  possible took me the best part of three more months to get fully back to where I was before the stroke work wise. The hardest part of the whole thing was not trying to balance the expectations of those you work with, those in charge, it is balancing your own expectations. I know full well that I should be able to do more, but couldn't. That is hard, and can be disheartening. 

It is this disheartening that can destroy your progress. Like anything there will be good and bad days, up and downs. Knowing that you can move forward, knowing that there is others that have your well being in their interests will help.

After getting out of hospital and rehab, I had to go to community rehab. This was not every day but once a week or even once every three weeks. Summer holidays effects all sorts, and the fact I was not bad meant that I didn't need as much.

Like all other rehab I was give exercises to practice at home, most these were around getting strength into may ankles. If you have a strong footing balance is much easier. One such exercises is to stand on one leg while doing something, making lunch or working. As I work at a standing desk I still find my self doing this from time to time. 

But then there are also exercises that you need equipment in order to do them. So these exercises I would do in the rehab center. I am sorry I don't know the names of the exercises, but I will explain the two that I want to mention.

For both the goal is to be able to easily, smoothly with control and your eyes closed balance on a board while moving. The first one is like a sea-saw where you rock forwards and backwards by pivoting your ankles up and down. I found this really hard.  The number of times I would tip forward as I couldn't control where my center of mass was going to be, was discouraging. 

Then I had to do the second exercises, which the physiotherapist describe as much harder than the first exercises. After hearing that I was not filled with hope. To describe this exercise you are standing on a disc with one center point that touches the ground, like a spinning top. Unlike a spinning top, the edge of the disc is to touch the ground at all times. The idea is by the movement in your ankles, knees and hips, you have to roll the disc around in a circle going clockwise and anti-clockwise. Not only is the coordination of the body parts a challenge, you also have to balance with your head rotating. If your movement was not smooth the disc would turn in a jumpy motion making it very hard to balance. As the disc is rotating, so are you, this meant grabbing the railing was not as easy as in the first exercises.

However, within a few attempts I was able to do the turn table exercises with my eyes closed and with increasing speed. To be fair I did find going left harder than going right. To me, this exercise made sense, it was easy, and I do understand why physiotherapist describe it as hard. But even with the improved control I how had from that exercise, doing the sea-saw exercise was still extremely hard. Time allowed me to get better, practices is a great equalizer. 

I think finding the easier exercise harder may have helped me realize that some task will be harder for some unknown reason, while harder task can be easy if the body understands how to do it.

We forget how little we understanding about how our bodies work. I spend the best part of five months every day thinking about how to balance. Image trying to walk a tightrope every moment of every day. You get use to it, and being to forget how much energy it takes out of you.

It was coming into the summer, we final had our first good weekend. So what do you do, you go to the beach. I may case we went to Tramore Co. Waterford, to go for a walk along the quay (walking on shifting sand would have been a step to far), and get ice cream. Everyone had the same idea. The place was packed with people. There is no such thing as walking in a straight line. You need to weave your way through the crowd. This means changing direction and predicting were the people you are meeting are going. 

That is some thing we in our subconscious, but I couldn't, I needed to plan every move and path I would take. This all the while having to actively manage my balance. You might image this takes a lot out of you. Yes, very much so. It took a week to recover form it. Every day I need to take naps. My work did suffer, I was suffering, everything suffered. 

It was on the Monday a week later that I woke to something not being right. I couldn't put my finger on it, but something was different. During the day I froze going down the stairs, I had realized what was different. I had not though about my balance all day. Just like that I could do things that the day before seemed so hard I wouldn't even attempt it.  One example was standing in the square of the tile in the kitchen and jumping up doing a 180 to land on the same title. That may not seem like a hard task but for me, the day before, that would have being an impossible task. Later that day when out for my evening walk the rescue helicopter was out. While continue to walk in a straight line, I was able to turn my head in the direction of the noise. Again that seem like such a simple task, but when it is you actively thinking about how to balance none of that is simple.

Like many companies the Waterford office of Red Hat has a sports and social club. They played a major part in my recovery, but at the time I don't think they knew just how much. It was later in the year when we have some visitors from the head office that I got to tell my story and thank the sports and social club for what they had done for me.

So what did they do. They organised two events in in particular which accelerated my recovery. The first being badminton every week for an hour for a month. This started few days after my balance had decide to work by itself. Even though I had my balance back my movement was not fluid I was still very stiff. The idea of playing a racket sport was crazy. Before doing this of course I got medical advice from my physio. His response said a lot. It was a great idea, but also a stupid idea. My limits were going to be pushed so hard, it will hurt a lot, but it would do the world of good. 

As long as I didn't over do it, I would be okay. As long as I understood my body can do what my mind thinks it can do, I would be okay. Of course the first day was a group of us trying to learn the sport, which is also very taxing on the mind. But I was also trying to play with younger people who can move much faster than I can. Of course the first week I over did it. I used all my energy. But that wasn't even the worst part. It was the pains in the body. I was using muscles that I possible hadn't used for years and with my messed up nervous system, this caused hours of pain. Which meant sleep was broken once again to only a few hours. This can snow ball, and affects all parts of your life.

Week two was something the same, but this time it didn't take as long to recover. Each week took a bit less to recover, and each week I found myself moving much faster. I found my self being able to compete with those who this was also there first time playing. This experience change me so much that when I seen flyers to join a badminton club a few months later I jumped at the chance to join. Now, I play twice a week most weeks and I feel so much better for it. I know I still have limits I can cross, but I also know I am pushing those limits further and further every.

The next event was a steps challenge.  This was an interesting event as all we had to do was walk. "All we had to do", in February my watch recorded me doing less then 300 steps in a day, for some days. The monthly counts was around 33k steps. Of course for the challenge I was sick again at the start of the month, god I hate covid. When the body is down it is the last thing you want. 

Again I seen this as a way to push my limits. I could have made my walks easy by walking on flat ground, but were is the fun in that. I even did a trip to Co. Clare to do the Caher Valley Loop. That was such a nice day. The walk was 14km long and hard, really hard, but I took my time. It was a enjoyable day.

But there was one walk that I always wanted to do, but always had a fear of. The want to do this was there even before the stroke. I wanted to do a loop walk that brings you by Mahon Falls. This walk would start at the Crough Coffee in Mahon Bridge, taking the Crough wood walk to Mahon Falls. Then using the roads to pass over the gap and loop back around again. This is also about 14km and fear had always stopped me from doing. I know what the hills are like, I have driven it may a times.

But for the last weekend in the steps challenge it was the perfect challenge to finish on. This would have being a milestone achievement in my recovery. I gave myself loads of time and I sent off. To my surprise, it wasn't hard. Not saying it was easy, it is still 14km in the comeragh mountains, but it was not hard. The fear that I had was not justified, but when is any fear justified. The walk I did the weekend before in Clare was far harder, but I never questioned my ability to do it.   

The steps challenge gave me faith in my ability to go explore and keep my self safe on the terrain. I still don't trust my self walking at the cliffs edge, but then I never did. So fear is still a good thing. 

If the sports and social club had not planned those events, would I be at the stage I am today, possible not. It was a reason to push my self. Beating 20 something years at badminton and following up with "you know I was able to walk at the start of the year or balance two weeks ago",  is such a nice feeling. I know it is mean, but hey. Then the steps challenge gave the reason to be out and about. Why do the local loop when you can explore the world we live in. It is a mind set change, which is always worth it.

By far the hardest challenge has being around food. I always have being one to enjoy my food, but that has changed.

Now I get very little pleasure from the taste of food. Most of the joy is gone. But the harder thing is always being hungry and never getting full. I mean I don't get that feeling of full, or satisfied. The only way I know I am full is when my stomach hurts because I have eaten too much. The Christmas dinner is a good example, I was still hungry after it. Even with going for seconds during the meal, and it is the one meal where it is never a small plate of food. 

Controlling the hungry is so hard. There has being times when I have eaten the weeks worth of food shop in a few hours, because the drive for more was so great. People say that I have to manage my in take, and ya that is true. But it is by no means easy. I know how I would manage it if I could, I would not have it in the house to start with. That does not work as I am not the only one in the house, and that would be really on fair on others. The idea always being hungry is hard for people to understand. The idea of never being full is hard for people to understand.

Like everything to do with the stroke this is not fully black and white. Over the last few weeks the symptoms have not been as strong. I can now smell food on the street and not have my stomach grumbling with the hungry. Still don't get full when I am eating, but some of the joy from the taste is starting to come back. Getting the joy of taste back might also be a bad thing. How hard is it to stop doing something that you are enjoying.

Going through a stroke is not something that you have to do on your own. There are lots of support groups out there, and as much as might feel you don't need it, you do. It is not until you start making use of the support that you become to realize how much it helps. I want to mention the Irish Heart Foundation, and the support that they gave me. The weekly calls for a few weeks seemed strange at first, but they become a welcome escape. Then there are the courses that the heart foundation puts on during the year. These can be super helpful.

One of the course which was held online over four weeks was "ACTivate Your Life". The ACT of the ACTivate stands for Acceptance and Commitment Therapy, and the course is about learning how to live life with the new normal. While there was lots of information given in the course there was one thing that resonated with me. Pain and suffer are not the same thing. At the time if I was not standing the nerves in my legs and feet would be firing with such pain. Sitting for any length of time was so hard. Getting to sleep at night meant first fighting my nerve system. I was in a lot of pain, but I was not suffering. Knowing that fact can bring so much relief, and it did. While the nerves firing was painful, I was okay with letting them do what they needed to do, and try to understand what was going on.

Today it is better but still not "normal", sitting is hard for any length of time. A stand desk makes my work life so much easier. I don't understand why standing does not have the same level of nerve reactions, but it does have some. To be clear there are times in where standing is also painful, and I need to sit. The other is also true where both standing and sitting is painful. In those cases you just have to deal with it. While I may be in a lot of pain at times, I am never suffering. That mind set is a very strong thing.

This was also a course put on by the Irish Heart Foundation. I want to call this one directly, it was the course I got the most out of. It was a very hands-on course with a number of break out session. The general idea is to learn on how to be mindful of the body and the surrounding we find ourselves in. The first practice that was shared is know as a full body scan. In this practice with the mind you visit every part of the body, spending some time to understand it is feeling. As you normally start with the feet you can image how this would fill my senses as my nerve system there was always firing. Doing the body scan you will find your mind will wonder, and you need to bring it back to focus on which ever body part you happen to be at. My mind does not sit still, there is a thousand and one thoughts going through it at any one time. Being able to bring the mind under control was hard, but I can now sort of do it. The body scan is the practice that I enjoy the most.

There was one practice that I can't remember the name of which is about sitting with a problem and asking it questions. The goal is not to solve the problem, but to come to an understanding and acceptances of the problem. This stood out to me mostly because timing was good, I was having an issue that I didn't accept. As I had to learn to walk again that meant learning how to control the different parts of the body again. At this time I was losing control of my right foot/ankle when going to walk down the stairs. Oddly walking down the stairs is on place you need to know you can trust your feet to be pointing in the right direction. So this was a concerning problem. During the practice I talked to my foot and ankle, asking question about why they were doing what they were. It was never about getting them to stop doing, but for me to accept that they were doing it. As strange as it sounds, talking to your own foot, it worked. I found I had to correct the movement far less after doing it, and I was angry with myself anymore over losing that control in the first place. 

Possible the biggest take-away was the others that were in the group. Everyone had a heart attack or stroke. The range of people went from young to old. Everyone was so different, but yet relatable. Natural people will share stories, and while everyone's story is different there was much common ground. Some talked about the hard time they were currently facing, and it was heartbreaking as we knew far too well what they were going through. You can and should talk about issue your having with others, no matter what the issue is, but there is more when you find people that have the same issues. While you may have the same issues how people approach deal with the issues can be so different. There was one person in the group who wanted to hide away from the pain, and for me the pain is a great point of interest. It's not that I like being in pain, I like trying to understand the pain and how it moves around. The two of us had a great conversation about how we saw the pain. Hopefully they can find peace with it now, like I have.

This question start to come to mind after being to a conference in November. I was talking with a few people about AI of all things. During the lunch, I got to tell the story of my stroke to back up the point of human resilience. It ended up being a very interesting conversation, and one of the question that come up was over losing muscle mass while in hospital. We talked about it, and about how I was much stronger now. There was also question over how to control your toes, as I had to learn to walk again. They wanted to learn to stop their toes from curling, but that is different story.

Afterwards the idea that the size of you muscles is what gives them strength ran around my mind as it is not true. When I was in the hospital my calves were like jelly, they were so squishy. And they were not the only muscles like that. Image standing and when you step you feel the bones in your foot pushing the muscles around. Today my muscles are not like that, but I don't think it is all because I have got the strength back in them. I think it is because the mind knows how to control the muscle. 

There were times I would feel the nerves pulling at my muscles in all the wrong ways, it would be extremely painful, but afterwards control was better. Thinking about it now, I think the strength was better also. I mention how I could feel the bones moving around in my foot. Luckily that does not happen anymore, but can. When I am mentally tired I can feel the bones in my feet moving around more. Not as much as the initial days. If I am physically tired the problem does not happen. 

The mind is very powerful, and we have no idea how the body works. While muscle will play a part in your strength, the mind will play a bigger rule. The mind is how we control that strength. So it only makes sense if the mind has a better understanding of how to wield those muscle, they will be stronger. We have all heard stories of mothers doing great feats of strength to save their children. Yes, adrenal would play a rule, but also their mental state in that they have to do this, has to have an effect.

If you have gotten to this point you might be starting to see having a stroke is not just what happens in the moment but what happens afterwards. There are a lot of little things that we normally take for granted that change in a flash. This is not the end of the story, it is not even the whole story to date. What I am hoping people will see is you can not know what others are going through. Today if you meet me, you would not know I had a stroke, apart from the fact I like telling the story, and I will tell you, but there are still a lot of things wrong with me.

Problems are only hard if we don't want to face them. They are only hard the first time we face them. We are resilient, we can recover from a lot, we can overcome a lot. As hard as the place your currently in, there are two other types of people out there. Those who are in a better place, and those in a worse place. Our minds are beautiful, we can do so much. 

Appreciate what you have, take joy from the simple things. One day it will be all gone. If there are stairs, run up it while you still can. If there are items on your bucket list, yeah you should think about doing it sooner than later. Something new you want to learn but feel it would be too hard, it maybe, but you can do it.