Five years ago on the 28th of October 2018 I awoke at 0600 unable to use my right arm, half of my face slumped and with a very wonky walk.
After my brush with Bell’s Palsy two years prior (the symptoms are similar), I knew the tests that checked to see if you’ve had a stroke.
My heart was racing faster than I had ever experienced with panic attacks and depression. In short, I felt like I’d been run over. There was no pain, however, but I had zero strength.
The ambulance seemed to take an age but was probably only 10 minutes. They were only in the house for about 20 minutes and then I was bundled in the back of the ambulance and driven to hospital.
I finally got to drive on the Northern Expressway, but it was not an ideal situation. My life had changed and not for the better.
Little did I know but the stroke was the least of my troubles. The first inkling of those troubles was receiving media enquiries within 30 minutes of arriving at the hospital. How did they know?
It caused me not inconsiderable stress, and I know who those pricks are and they will never, ever be getting anything from me ever again.
With such a massive privacy breach I was loath to stay at North Shore hospital, but in any case it was decided to transfer me to the Stroke Unit at Auckland Hospital after several tests and scans.
I don’t know if you know, but when you have a stroke some things are not obvious but seriously affect you. One thing that affected me was my hearing has become extremely sensitive. I can hear people clearly talking across a room, even if they are talking in hushed tones. I can also focus on a conversation across a room even if there are others around making lots of exceedingly annoying noise. But sounds in general have become annoying. Especially whining or squealing children.
Another side effect of my stroke, because of where the stroke was located, was my already low tolerance for stupidity, coupled with a propensity to say out loud what others would only think was heightened. In other words I just blurted things out. I had no control over it. And so you can imagine what the work shy fatty thought about me as I was wheeled out to the ambulance to go to Auckland Hospital.
The biggest issue I had was my exceedingly high blood pressure. It hovered around 200/120 for a couple of days until through trial and error they stabilised it via medication.
One test, performed on the day of my discharge, after a week in hospital, was to establish clinically if I would ever regain the use of my arm again. It involved placing a figure of eight shaped electrode over the site of the stroke on my head, and recording electrical impulses in my arm on electrodes down the arm. The grim faces of the medical guys conducting the test told me everything I needed to know. When they wanted to do the tests again then I knew it was bad.
They told me I’d never use my right arm again, it was that blunt. They got the neurologist to come and explain it to me. That was a pretty low moment. Thankfully the neurologist then told me I’d have to learn to do everything with my left hand. I asked “Like what?” He said “Like writing”.
“Great” I said, “Pass a pen, no time like the present”, and started writing something on a piece of paper. What I wrote was, “You clearly haven’t read my notes, I’m left-handed”.
That certainly lightened the mood.
But at that moment I resolved to prove the “experts” wrong. Can’t isn’t a word I recognise, and a word I seldom use. Can’t is what other people say. I told the specialists they were wrong, and I left hospital determined to prove them wrong.
I was sent home then, but the next morning I was pretty crook. My blood pressure went through the roof again, and the doctor called an ambulance. Back to the hospital, I went, and back to my privacy being breached again at North Shore hospital. Suffice to say I was back in Auckland Hospital under an assumed name, where they found that my potassium levels had dropped to dangerous life-threatening levels.
That was five years ago.
As I lay there in the hospital I took stock of my life.
I was profoundly changed by this experience, but it has taken almost five years to get things sorted in my life.
Nearly dying focusses one’s mind, and I realised that for 30 years I had neglected my faith.
But first I had to fix my body, then my mind, and finally I found the bandwidth to address my faith.
I was stubborn, and determined to heal. I am the type of person that refuses to ever quit.
I fixed my body by diving deep into physiotherapy. I have regained almost full use of arm as a result.
I never gave up and never gave in.
There were still issues to overcome though, including a frozen shoulder, which is extremely painful. Reactivating muscles and tendons is rather painful too, but I never gave up, never gave in, and went day after day to physio.
By the time the WuPox hit I was used to being isolated. But the worst thing was Ardern’s “kindness” stopped my physio.
You can’t fathom how frustrating that has been, and how detrimental to my recovery as well. But that’s Jacinda Ardern’s kindness for you.
So here we are 5 years later. I’m fit, I’m healthy, I defied all the experts prognosis.
And now my risk of another stroke is dramatically reduced.
One thing I learned from my stroke experience is that if it is to be, it is up to thee.
This means that you must do it yourself and you must not wait.
When the Occupational Therapist came to assess me, nine weeks after my stroke, I had already made great strides in recovery. I was past whatever support they could offer. That’s because I backed myself and got superb assistance privately.
That is also why I continue to attend physio. I am still finding improvements as each week goes by. Normally, people find they plateau after 6 months. I never have and I put that down to my dogmatic, and some would say selfish, single-minded mission to recover.
When I left the hospital it was with a prognosis of never being able to use my right arm or hand again. They said that things might improve slightly for the first 3 months, but by 6 months it would plateau and stop improving.
I told the doctors they were wrong.
It just goes to show that my pig-headed stubbornness and never say die attitude is a help not a hindrance.
But imagine how much better I’d have been if we didn’t have the lockdowns which prevented even more physiotherapy. Stopping critical physiotherapy for stroke victims is hardly kindness. How many stopped altogether rather than keep on trying to recover?
It’s disappointing, depressing, challenging, and at the same time rewarding, invigorating and satisfying to see the little improvements happen.
It has been mentally and physically draining recovering from the stroke. It’s why I took a whole year off.
It is why I only do one article a day even now.
Just so you know, to do my radio show each week takes almost an entire day of preparation and planning, for just three hours on air.
The thing you find out when you have a life-changing medical event like this is just precisely who your friends are. Who are there for you and who are not. Those who are not aren’t worth the time. I’ve cut them from my life and don’t miss them at all.
Those who are there for you are treasures. Those of you who were there for me know who you are and I thank you most profusely for the support you’ve given me and those around me.
And so now five long years have elapsed. The struggle continues. I’m still here, I’m still fighting, and I’m not going away.
But I will continue to develop a better life/work balance. I’m taking up new hobbies and starting some new projects for relaxation.
There are certainly many more challenges ahead. Finding out what continues to deplete my potassium is still a work in progress. But like everything I will eventually solve that one too.
Contrary to what the doctors predicted I do have the use of my right arm. I can’t yet type with that hand, but it is getting slowly but surely stronger and more dexterous.
It won’t recover fully, and there will always be an impairment, but even so I’m a better person both mentally and physically, despite my impairment, than most people. I describe myself as enhanced rather than impaired.
At some stage I may write a book, or sit with someone who will write it for me.
There is so much to tell about, not just the past five years, but also the things I’ve done in my life that few people know about.
I’ve certainly had plenty of time to think about it, and there is lots to tell.
Eventually the otherside of what the media and my opponents have said will need to be told. Then people will see the real me, and not the dark cartoonish persona my opponents attempted to pigeonhole me as.
The truth will out, and that time is coming.
For now, I will keep on keeping on.
I know that the mere fact that I am living and breathing gives my political enemies cold comfort. I still live rent free in their tiny, feeble minds. And the funny thing is, even after a serious stroke like I’ve had I’m still better at what I do than all of them combined.
I’m well on the road to a near full recovery, and I have lots more that I want to achieve.
You will see them happen because I won’t be deterred from achieving those goals.
I’m enjoying things again for the first time in a very long time, and that includes my work. I find my radio work invigorating and energising, despite the effort.
Onwards. Never give up, never give in.
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