My wife suffered a severe ischaemic stroke 2 weeks ago which caused loss of speech and all right side movement. She was hospitalised at Maidstone HASU by ambulance and within a few hours treated with a new clot busting drug tenecteplase. Then emergency transfer to Royal London where she had a thrombectomy removing a clot and fitting a carotid stent. Back to Maidstone where she was declared fit for discharge, all within less than 3 days from having the stroke. She is now fully mobile with minimal after effects including minor speech problems and weakness in her right hand. I wanted to share this as NHS gave remarkable service and care leading to what i consider an amazing if hardly believable outcome.
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Hello @DavidG11 - What a wonderful post 
Thank you for sharing your experience of our amazing NHS service. I am so pleased that your wife has been treated for a severe stroke with what appears to be leading edge treatments and has made a remarkable recovery and all in a matter of days.
What you describe sounds almost unbelievable and I would suggest significantly different to the experiences of some of the other members of this forum who also have been treated by the same NHS service.
There is a saying, “Life isn’t fair” and of course this is 100% true, life isn’t fair and in in life there are winners and there are losers. In this case you and your wife are absolutely amongst the winners.
I am sure all others who read your post will join me in wishing you and your wife all the very best. If this is some sort of new treatment, let us hope that others get to experience the same despite it (the NHS service offerings) being a postcode lottery.
All the best. Take care.
Namaste|
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@DavidG11 hi & welcome to the community. It definitely sounds like your wife received great care after her stroke & itb s great to read how well she is doing after a short period of time.
When it works well the NHS is absolutely amazing & I am glad we have them.
Wishing you & your wife all the best.
Ann
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Hi @DavidG11 Sorry to hear of your wife’s stroke but welcome to our community and I hope you will find this a useful place to be. That’s an amazing post. Brilliant that your wife received such great treatment and is recovering so well.
Thank you for sharing such a positive experience, and I hope that your wife’s road to recovery continues in such a positive way.
Best wishes to both of you.
Regards Sue
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The NHS is brilliant when there’s a crisis.
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Yes we have been incredibly lucky. Firstly that my woke up and we spotted the problem, second ambulance came within 10min, thirdly we benefited from what I understand is a game changing treatment that was only approved in March, Tenecteplase. It has to be given within 4.5 hours of the stroke.
David
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Thank you, we are just 2 weeks into treatment and questions are arising which I will pose on a different thread.
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Hello @DavidG11 i had the opposite an haemorragic stroke and was left side paralysed i’m delighted that you are happy with the care your wife received. My care has been hit n miss although well meaning many medics both doctors and HCAs can be condescending and demeaning. Assuming that because i can’t speak post-stroke that i am stupid or simple!
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Hi Mich, My wife had an ischaemic stroke caused by a blood clot detached from a narrowing of her carotid which was stented in an op that enters via the groin. The emergency treatment was great and thankfully very timely which is why the outcome has been incredible given her speechless and paralysed state an hour in. Since then mixed. Our GP practice appointments are via Anima which seems to mean never see the same doc twice! Also the GPs don’t seem fully familiar with treatments and refer constantly to someone else. Had to go to A&E post stroke with high BP as was W/E via 111. Guy said it was white coat syndrome and go to A&E. A&E at different hospital was so bad we discharged ourselves after 8 hours +. I wasn’t impressed!
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Hi @DavidG11
Welcome to the community, I’m sorry to hear about your wife’s stroke.
It’s great to hear that you’re wife has had such amazing treatment and I hope that her recovery continues to go well.
I hope you’ll find this community helpful for you and your wife as you continue through the recovery journey. 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
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Hello @DavidG11 yes I knew it was ischaemic rather than haemorrhagic because you talked of your wife getting clot buster drug.i hope she continues to recover and receive excellent care.
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I just wish to say it’s so nice to hear such a positive outcome. And that your wife is recovering well and that she has had a good outcome. It’s a good drug yes, but it also due to the support and love you are giving. My husband had a TIA in May and is also doing well.
We often think at the time that life has hit us a hard blow! And it feels that like your in a nightmare walking a long corridor where you can find the way out. But each day is different and with it comes a little more hope and positivity. And this is one of the times that we look to eachother for support and sharing each other journey it gives us hope as it helps us to understand nobody is alone. 
The NHS is the best in my view, in the world without it dedicated staff and that fantastic clot busting drug such positive outcomes may not be possible? They are truly a God send.
Thank you for sharing your great news and I hope your wife’s recovery continues from strength to strength
And to all the lovely people in the community thank you for sharing your journey’s I would feel lost and wouldn’t know what to do to help my husband or how to try and understand as it’s not been easy at time understand what was going on in his mind. But because of your individual sharing your journey’s I don’t feel alone anymore.
It’s Good to talk!
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Hello @Marie3 - nice to hear from you and thank you for such a warm and positive post. I hope things are going well for you and your husband.
I hope that with your encouragement and love for him, he has become more positive and accepting of what has happened and importantly that he can and will improve. The journey has only just begun
Time is a healer.
Take care
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Hello @Marie3
@Bobbi and I adapted the words of the Eagles song hotel California to represent the stroke experience because as you say it feels like being stuck on a corridor with no way out:
On a dark Hospital corridor, cool wind in my hair
Warm smell of bleach, rising up through the air
Up ahead in the distance, I saw a shimmering light drawing me towards it.
My head grew heavy and my sight grew dim
I had to stop being drawn in.
There I stood in the doorway looking back at myself attached to every hospital machine
I heard the heart monitor bleeping
And I was thinking to myself
“This could be Heaven or this could be Hell”
Then I lit up a candle and fought my way back to my body.
There were voices down the corridor
I thought I heard them say
Welcome to the Stroke International
Such a lovely place (Such a quiet space
I’m in interspace,
Between life and death
Plenty of room at the Hotel stroke international,
Any stage of health
Any phase of health status
One side of your body numb, what is the cause? The brain fog is all consuming, I don’t understand what is happening, I feel so alone
A vessel in my brain has blown, I can hear them saying. They remove part of my skull to relieve the pressure on my brain
am I insane?
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Amazing to hear everything has gone so positively for your wife and delighted to hear about the new treatment available. I had the thrombolysus treatment which made a massive difference. Can’t imagine how much of my brain it saved. Hope everything continues to go well for you guys.
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So sorry to hear about your treatment. I am a year on from my Stroke and my speech gets really bad when really tired or anxious. There needs to be alot more awareness about Stroke and brain injury and it’s a sad state of affairs that this issue still exists.
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Agreed @HamPorkson i have had very little SALT compared to physio and OT. If you take a look at my thread on the presentation I recently gave to SALT’s on the use of AAC communication devices. You will see that my recommendation is that stroke survivors receive 2hours of SALT a day to get them talking again, speaking is of course an inherent human characteristics and our voice and intonation is very much a part of one’s identity
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Im in Nz they do very little for stokes usually only 2 day in hospital to do the scans & give you blood p[ressure pills —- hospitals way under staffed waiting times to get a bed is up to 13 hours , No back up no help afterwards there is a stroke foundation but they are no help either mostly jus tcounseling depresed stoke victims
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Hi David
I have read up a bit on Tenecteplaste and i don’t swear i am a expert, yet if i’m not mistaken this drug has come around from research involved with CRISPR which would be amazing, i have read how it’s been out there for quite a while but research was not to keen because of all the potential other possibilities you could do with it but now science and research are going in heavy purely for the sick (NHS) and i am grateful.
However the side effect from Tenecteplaste is Internal Bleeding which can occur at the injection site or internally, and if they had to inject your brain? It wouldn’t be good.
Firstly, before i go on, is this correct Stroke Moderator Anna? And to theorise about this; so a patient comes in with an ischaemic stroke, then they are treated with Tenecteplase and they have a bleed, does this signify that the rest of the body is having a hard time sort of catching up or something similar? So me guessing again, now how the Doctor basically deal with a patient with an ischaemic stroke, is depending on whether they are in good condition or messed up (i.e: they live purely on fast food) will determine the way they are treated because of the potential side effects?
I have been reading into CRISPR because i have a nephew who has Muscular Dystrophy and for ±20 years have dug around the internet and then i heard of CRISPR and suddenly there may be a cure for every fatal genetic disease known to man and other … 
By the sounds of it they have to do tricks with CRISPR and then it comes out as a more complex drug with a resounding name. Please don’t quote me and please could the NHS tell us?
Secondly David, did they give your wife blood thinning and other drugs, post stroke. This would be interesting to know and has your wife had fatigue problems and some sort of depression, as we all did, hence the question? Please keep writing and keeping us in the loop?
It is really good to hear your wife is up and about and i really wish you guys all the best.
I had a ischaemic stroke 5 years ago now i have emphysema, diabetes, slightly weak heart & kidneys and suffer with all the drugs i take, now i don’t claim i have cures for all problems but for food and eating it, with my nephew, there is a lady called Glucose Goddess, she is amazing (i just got to be more religious) but it is starting to show in my Doctors tests. If i knew this when i was a spring chicken ….
Really hoping to hear from you and about your wife’s progression and from The Stroke Moderator.
Nigel
I’m not sure about some of the comments you have made as I have no knowledge of the CHRISPR points raised.
The Tenectaplase was administered, as far as I know, by intravenous injection, through a canular. There may be some confusion re internal bleeding. As I was told the Tenectaplase is an emergency clot busting drug used in a large single dose often in anticipation of a Thrombectomy. In my wife’s case this was via the groin and femoral artery to access the carotid artery and brain system. Bleeding could be expected at the entry point and the arterial system accessed by the catheter during the angioplasty. There was none at the entry point and minimal bleeding within the brain caused by the procedure.
My wife was treated with blood thinners and will likely be on them for the rest of her life. Post treatment she took Clopidigel (for life) Aspirin 150mg (stopped) and high dose Atorvastin 80mg replaced now by Ezerimide due to side effects of the Statin. This on top of her BP,
She is doing remarkably well with surprisingly slight problems with speech and her right hand movement and strength. Fatigue is an issue, worsened by severe restless leg syndrome causing poor sleep; nausea, feeling cold, buzzing in head, and light headedness are other symptom that are getting her down a bit, but I wouldn’t say depression.
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