Life after leaving hospital
After only two nights in hospital I was back home. My speech had returned and, on the surface, I looked remarkably normal. But I soon discovered that getting home and being recovered were two very different things.
I was home — but things weren't normal
I was fortunate to leave hospital relatively quickly after my stroke. My speech had returned and many of the obvious immediate effects had improved.
But I'd gone from being somebody who had never really been ill to somebody who had just spent two nights on a stroke ward.
There was also no clear answer yet as to why it had happened.
I was off work, couldn't drive and had been told not to exercise until further assessment.
Then I discovered stroke fatigue
The fatigue during that first week was unlike ordinary tiredness.
It could affect me physically and mentally, and I didn't necessarily appreciate how quickly my energy could disappear.
One of the clearest examples happened only days after I came home.
I went to a local garden centre with my parents. They were elderly, yet by the end of the visit they were the ones having to help me back to their car because I was so exhausted.
That was difficult to get my head around
Only a short time earlier I'd been doing HIIT classes.
Now a trip around a garden centre could leave me needing help getting back to the car.
It was one of the first times I really understood that the effects of stroke aren't necessarily obvious from the outside.
Fortunately for me, the severe fatigue improved relatively quickly over the following days and weeks.
Something that completely wiped me out during those first few days didn't necessarily mean I would always feel that way.
Losing my driving licence
Following the stroke, my driving licence was temporarily taken away.
That meant an immediate loss of independence.
Normally I could simply get into the car and go wherever I wanted. Suddenly that option had disappeared.
In reality, during those first few weeks I didn't particularly want to travel very far anyway.
But there is a difference between choosing to stay close to home and being told that you cannot drive.
Independence suddenly felt different
Losing the ability to drive, even temporarily, was another reminder that normal life had been interrupted.
I didn't stay at home for long
I was officially off work for around two weeks.
But I'm a managing director and I'm not particularly good at sitting around doing nothing.
As the initial fatigue improved, boredom started to replace it.
I couldn't drive to the office, so eventually I walked there.
It was around a six-mile round trip.
Not being allowed to exercise worried me most
Of all the restrictions after the stroke, the one I found most concerning was being told to stop exercising.
Exercise had always been a normal part of my life.
Now the activity I'd always associated with being healthy suddenly felt like something I might need to be frightened of.
There was also an obvious thought in my head: I'd done a HIIT class only a few hours before my stroke.
I wanted to know whether I could safely exercise again.
I didn't know whether pushing myself again might trigger another problem.
The treadmill test
Before I was allowed to return to exercise, I underwent a monitored treadmill test.
I was wired up to monitoring equipment while the intensity of the exercise increased.
I remember being very aware of what I was doing.
Part of me didn't dare push too hard because I was frightened that something might happen again.
But another part of me was still competitive.
So despite the nerves, I gave it a good go.
Apparently, I lasted longer than most
The doctors told me that I'd lasted longer on the treadmill than most people undergoing the test.
That was reassuring.
More importantly, I was eventually given the green light to start exercising again.
For me, that was a huge relief.
But getting medical clearance didn't instantly remove the fear I'd developed around pushing my body.
I started very conservatively
Before the stroke, exercise intensity wasn't something that frightened me.
Afterwards, increasing my heart rate felt completely different.
Even though I'd been cleared to exercise, I started again very conservatively.
My wife came running with me in case anything happened.
Having her there gave me reassurance while I began testing what my body could do again.
Confidence came back over the following weeks
I didn't suddenly wake up one morning feeling completely confident again.
It came gradually.
Each run and each period of exercise that went well gave me a little more confidence.
Over the following weeks, I became less frightened of increasing my heart rate and started returning towards the level of activity I'd been used to before the stroke.
Looking back, rebuilding confidence in my body was as important to me as rebuilding fitness.
I started looking harder at my diet too
I already thought I ate reasonably well before my stroke.
Afterwards, though, I started researching nutrition more seriously and looking for things I could improve.
More protein
I deliberately started including more protein in my diet as part of supporting my training and general health.
Less sugar
I stopped adding sugar to tea and started becoming more conscious of habits I'd previously barely thought about.
Herbal tea
At work I increasingly replaced ordinary tea with herbal tea.
Less alcohol
I reduced how much alcohol I drank.
Less bread
I also cut out a lot of the bread I'd previously eaten.
More awareness
Most importantly, I became much more conscious of the relationship between my everyday habits and long-term health.
I focused on the things I could control
At this stage, I still didn't know why I'd had a stroke.
That uncertainty was always there in the background.
What I could control was how I lived.
I could exercise once I'd been cleared to do so. I could improve my diet. I could reduce alcohol. I could try to become fitter and healthier.
So that's what I concentrated on.
But one question hadn't gone away
Physically, I was recovering well.
I was getting back to work, becoming active again and gradually trusting my body.
But none of that answered the question that had been there since I was lying in hospital:
Why had I had a stroke at 44?
The medical investigations continued.
Over time I would have more heart tests, scans and long-term rhythm monitoring as doctors looked for an explanation.
Eventually, those investigations would identify something I didn't even know I had.
And that discovery would lead to the next major chapter of my stroke journey.
What those first weeks taught me
My early recovery happened relatively quickly, but that didn't make it psychologically straightforward.
Within a short period I went from needing my elderly parents to help me back to their car, to walking several miles to the office and eventually returning to exercise.
The biggest lesson for me was that recovery wasn't simply about whether I could physically perform an activity.
I also had to regain confidence that it was safe to do it.
Stroke affects people very differently. The speed at which I returned to walking, work and exercise should not be treated as a target for another stroke survivor.
Searching for the cause of my stroke
I was exercising again and life was becoming more normal. But doctors still needed to understand why I'd suffered a stroke at 44. That search involved heart scans, a bubble test, long-term monitoring and eventually the discovery of a PFO.
BACK TO MY STROKE JOURNEY