Hello everyone, I’m Jane. My husband Graeme (60, very fit and active) suffered a stroke out of the blue two weeks ago. No previous history, no symptoms. A normal day until he said that he couldn’t move his left leg and then his arm went numb. I called 999 and the emergency services were amazing, paramedic with us within a couple of minutes or so, ambulance close behind and a blue light to North Tees hospital where the stroke team were waiting, CT scanned him and gave him whatever the drug is to disperse the blood clot on his brain. Within an hour or so of the 999 call he was in bed on the stroke ward, it all happened so fast. He has got feeling back in his left arm and leg, but both very weak. After 5 nights in hospital he was discharged, walking with a stick, fatiguing really quickly and frustrated and grumpy as he can’t do everything he wants to do - YET - not helped by the fact that he has also come down with a chest infection. He is doing brilliantly and the speed of his treatment will mean a good, hopefully full, recovery. Although he had the stroke, I feel like I have been run over by a truck and torment myself with what ifs - what if he had been out with the dog, what if he had been out at his allotment, what if I had been working on a call upstairs and not heard him and he couldn’t reach the phone. I have so many questions and worries and hope that by joining this forum I can take comfort and information from others experiences. Thank you.
Hi Jane, just to let you know ,my husband was with me when I had my stroke almost one year ago. He dialled 999 straight away .I couldn,t talk or stand. He also did the FAST test and I couldn,t move my right arm.He was able to tell the controller that he thought I,d had a stroke. The first controller said she wouldn,t send an ambulance and a medic would phone sometime! She told him to get a defribrillator.Before he had time to do this ,a medic called him ,told him he had upgraded the call and an ambulance was on the way! To cut a long story short after arriving at hospital they didn,t diagnose stroke ,they THOUGHT I,d had a cardiac episode and arranged transfer to another hospital. Well it turns out there was NOTHING wrong with my heart ,apart from a slight murmur! So back to my local.hospital in the middle of the night! I was transferred to the stroke ward there after my husband fought for it and from there things improved!The cosultant there told me it had been a "small vessel"and with the medication "it shouldn.t happen again. I have few deficits now .Just have to improve my walking ,with the help of private physio. Your husband will imrove I,m sure especially having the correct treatment so quickly ! Jean
Hi Jane, sorry to hear of your husband’s stroke but welcome to our community.
We are a merry band of stroke survivors and their families and carers. We have a wealth of experience and information between us and hope that you will find this a useful place to be, so ask away if you have any questions or if you just need to have a rant or need a shoulder to cry on.
Stroke is a traumatic and terrifying experience to go through for everyone involved and it’s perfectly normal to go through the “What if” stage, I think we are all guilty of that at some point but you were there and managed to
get help quickly, which will help as he makes his road to recovery.
Like your husband, many of the stroke survivors here (myself included) were fit and healthy before our strokes hit !!
Stroke recovery is a long and difficult journey and provokes a roller-coaster of emotions. It is very early days in recovery terms and things will settle down over the coming months and with your love and support he will slowly make improvements.
Please remember to take good care of yourself too and be kind to each other.
I wish you both well and ook forward to hearing from you as your husband’s recovery continues.
Regards Sue
Hello Jane @MrsF - Welcome to the community. So glad you have joined us and shared the recent experience of your husband Graeme having a stroke.
I note @Gorrie and @Susan_Jane have responded to your post and they have said pretty much what I would have said.
It is a terrible shame Graeme has had the stroke despite his condition prior to the stroke, but it seems this is not unusual.
Having read your post I am so very pleased that you were there when it happened and did exactly the right things, and in so doing, having given Graeme the best chance of (if I may say so) a full recovery.
To me, your post is a text book example of what to do when a stroke happens and the text book [ideal] response and outcome 
I almost want to celebrate this, and if I may I will 
The outcome is exactly what one would hope for inasmuch Graeme is almost back to his previous self apart from the chest infection and fatigue.
The What Ifs you are tormenting yourself with, I would suggest you are doing yourself an injustice. You should be celebrating as if you have won [enter here your ideal win :)]!!
You have given Graeme every chance to lead a normal a life or the life he would have led had he not had the stroke.
I can’t help being so happy for you both
So what now?
It is not over yet and there will be much to look out for to make sure you remain on the right road.
My advice based on what has been observed and learned first hand.
- Keep up the physio - extremely important - probably the most important thing in my view
- Manage the fatigue - allow the body to rest and recover (and there will be a lot of this needed - do not underestimate or get over confident)
- Be patient - Graeme should not get frustrated and impatient - patience and the right balance is the key here.
- Get plenty of rest and drink fluids
- Don’t worry about what ifs - you’ve done all the right things and achieved the best outcome and that is what matters and that is where you’re at. I really don’t think you could have done anything more
Jane - call it what you will, luck, fate, whatever. I have not met or heard from anyone including everyone on this forum who have had the result you have had.
Please do feel free to come and ask anything you would like to know and please do keep us updated on how Greame gets on with his recovery.
Finally, I am happy to talk and be positive (I hope that is what I have done), but I do need to remind myself and therefore you that what you (Graeme) have been through is quite a serious thing and it must be respected. As good as everything has been so far, there is still work to do and it may take time, more time than you (Graeme) would like to give. But this is probably one thing you don’t have much control over.
It (stroke recovery) takes as long as it takes
Wishing you and Graeme all the best.
Namaste|
Hi @MrsF and welcome to the community. I’m sorry to hear of your husband stroke and have need to join us, but you are very welcome 
There’s nothing more traumatic than seeing your loved one going through such a life threatening experience, and you did so well, you kept your head and got him the help he needed. You should be proud of yourself You’ve given your husband a good second chance at life 
There is a shed load of information on here that just about covers everything stroke related and then some. If you have a question just enter it into search box above by clicking the 
magnifying glass and you may get a string of results.
A stroke is not just for Christmas it’s for life! That’s my family’s favourite phrase because I had mine on Christmas day 4yrs ago. And we all were plagued with the “what if’s” too. But then after we got over the initial shock and I was well on the road to recovery, that phrase became “and you could be run over by a bus in the morning”.
So don’t plague yourself with the “what if’s”, because they didn’t happen! You are both in shock but it does get better as time goes on and he continues to improve.
For right now though, let him take it easy, yes do all the rehab required of him but go at his pace and don’t expect too much. Brain fatigue and brain fog are the two invisible issues he will have post stroke. And they are what will be preventing him from doing much at all.
That’s the way its going to be for the next 6 months or so, depending on well he recovers. The first 6mths are all about his brain mopping up and repairing wherever it can after the damage done to it. And that require a lot of rest or peace and quiet time, avoiding overstimulation whenever you can, to allow that time to heal and repair. Even sleep will be disrupted so expect and accept that as part’n’parcel of his recovery as well as some 2 steps forward 1 step back along that course to recovery.
Ask anything and everything you want on here, we’ll all give you the truth and reality of it based on our own experiences. So hopefully will at least give you some peace of mind.
Take care of yourself and get all the rest you can, and don’t forget to take time out for yourself to decompress, you matter too.
Lorraine
@MrsF Hi & welcome to the community. Sorry to hear of your husbands stroke. It sounds like he got the best treatment he could in a great response time. In this day and agevthat is rare but if is great to hear of it happening. That has definitely given him thexbest chance of a full recovery.
It is natural to have the “what if” moments. We all do. But try & remember that those what ifs didn’t happen & everything turned out as best it could have given he had the stroke. There are manybwhat ifs in life & if we worried about them all we would never do anything. Having said that I know it isn’t easy to duscard those thoughts. They will ease in time though - 2 weeks is very early in recovery terms.
As you will have realised a stroke affects the loved ones as much as the individual who had the stroke. Remember it’s important to look after yourself too.
There’s a lot of useful info on this site but if you have any more questions please just ask away.
Best wishes to you both.
Ann
Hi @MrsF
Welcome to the community, I’m sorry to hear of your husband Graeme’s stroke. It sounds like you did an amazing job of getting Graeme the help he needed which will have set him up for a good recovery.
I can see you’ve had some great responses from the community. The only other thing I’ll offer is a link to our information on Fatigue on our website, just in case you have already seen this. It has lots of information which may help Graeme.
Please do remember to look after yourself through this too, a stroke happens to everyone around the stroke survivor too so please make sure you reach out and talk to people about how you’re feeling too.
Wishing Graeme well with his recovery. If you need anything whilst you’re using the Online Community, please don’t hesitate to tag me using the @ symbol and my username.
Anna
Thank you so much to everyone for the warm welcome and the useful information and support, its very helpful. I am just so thankful for the amazing ambulance service and the hospital emergency care xx