Rebuilding life one frame at a time: My stroke journey and moving forward

In October 2018, my life changed forever.
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I was just 41 years old when I suffered an ischemic stroke. A blood clot blocked an artery in my brain, and everything I knew was turned upside down in an instant.
There were no warning signs, no sense that anything was wrong the day before. I wasn’t unwell. I wasn’t prepared. One moment I was living my life and the next I was
facing a future that I couldn’t recognise.
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Until that point, I had a clear and stable career in the motor industry. It was a world I understood. It was full of structure, progress, purpose. I’d worked hard to build a
career, to climb the ladder, to do what many of us are taught to do: stay on the path, make a living, contribute. I had plans. I had routines. I had certainty.
But stroke doesn’t care about your plans.
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It tears through your timeline without warning, leaving a trail of questions and a version of yourself you don’t yet know how to live with. Like so many stroke
survivors, I had to let go of so many things that had defined me for years. That was the first step of a long journey.

The Hidden Impact

The stroke left me partially sighted; I can now only see out of my right eye. In a world that depends so heavily on vision, especially in daily tasks and social interaction, this change was disorienting. I had to relearn how to navigate physical spaces. My depth perception was thrown off. Crowded places became overwhelming. Simple things like pouring tea, reading signs, or crossing the street became new challenges. You learn to adapt, but there’s grief in that process too, not just for what you’ve lost, but for how easily you used to do things without thinking.
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Then came the epilepsy. Another unexpected consequence of the stroke. I began experiencing seizures, and with that came another layer of fear and uncertainty. Epilepsy changed the way I moved through the world, adding restrictions, forcing me to slow down, to plan more cautiously, to constantly assess risk in situations where I used to be carefree.
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But perhaps the most difficult shift - and the one people don’t always see - was internal. Anxiety and depression arrived, uninvited companions that often follow
stroke survivors. On the surface, I could appear calm. But inside, I was navigating waves of emotion, fear, and sadness that felt almost impossible to articulate. I didn’t just lose part of my vision or my health. I lost my confidence. My independence. My sense of identity.

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A Journey I Didn't Expect

This wasn’t supposed to be my story. I thought strokes were something that happened much later in life. I wasn’t elderly. I was still working. Still building. Still
young and fit. But I quickly learned that stroke doesn’t just affect the elderly.

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In the UK, over 100,000 people have a stroke or mini-stroke every year and nearly 40,000 of those are under the age of 65. Many, like me, are juggling jobs, family, or
relationships when their lives are suddenly rerouted. It’s an experience that can feel incredibly isolating, because the world isn’t built with younger stroke survivors in mind. We fall between categories. We’re expected to bounce back quickly, to return to “normal” but for many of us, that old version of normal is no longer possible. And yet, we still carry on. Not because we’re heroes, but because we have no choice. Because somewhere inside us, there's a small but determined part that wants to find a way forward.

One small step at a time.

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