A Stroke of Luck

A Stroke of Luck
Introduction
(skip to Thumbnail biography)
This is a personal memoir of my recovery from a brain haemorrhage and for that reason there is no apology for the frequent use of first person pronouns, I, me, my. In order to avoid them the narrative would have had to read like a company report or legal document.

For a long time after my haemorrhage I concentrated on writing fiction and despite being encouraged (bullied?) by several care workers to write about the recovery process I was adamant that it would never happen. The Senior Sister in the rehabilitation unit (who became a dear friend) used to say if she could put my attitude in bottles to be injected into other people the success rate for rehab. would be a lot higher. If whatever had helped me come to terms with my sudden disability and make such a determined effort to recover I would have been putting it in bottles and selling it on the Internet, I told her. Then one of the Community Nurses who visited me told me the story of a man of similar age and background to myself who had similar problems but had not been so severely physically affected. This person however had not been able to find the will to fight back and fell into deep despair, declaring that his life was over and there was nothing left to look forward to. The nurse wished she could introduce me to him and let us talk for a while but to do so would have contravened medical procedures. When an attractive woman lays this kind of guilt on me it usually works (OK, I'm shallow I know) which is probably why nurses are so good at it. After being told by carers that other people may benefit from knowing that they were not alone in experiencing emotional crises as a result of a life changing illness, the resolve that arose from my dislike of biographical writing has been eroded.

The book has been written not for personal gain but to encourage others who might find themselves in a similar situation, their families and friends and anybody who takes up the task of supporting a survivor of brain injury through the most difficult times imaginable. The reputation of brian injuries and their consequences is terrifying yet the long term outcome may be very different from level of debility that popular opinion suggests is inevitable.

Readers should be aware this is a memoir rather than an autobiography, the intention being to try and convey my emotional state and how the crises were dealt with rather than give a day to day account of my recovery. The events and conversations described did happen more or less as I remember them but, not being the kind of writer who would ever sacrifice a joke for the sake of truth I have taken a few liberties to enhance the entertainment value and by - pass lots of tedious detail.

A Stroke of Luck is not a manual for recovery or a "how to do it" book. If anybody reading this is trying to come to terms with the effects of a brain injury the only pieces of advice I can honestly give are: never give up, never lose your sense of humour and never ever surrender to the tyranny of conventional wisdom.
Other books written on the subject have been commercial ventures and in my opinion tended to stick closely to the attitudes recommended by conventional medicine. One thing I have always found rather irritating is that one is constantly told to be "positive." This word is used so often it becomes a cliché. Set yourself goals but do not become despondent if you fail to achieve them. Accepting your problems, coming to terms with them and refusing to let the mental or physical effects of your stroke define your life is the trick you have to pull off. What is being "positive?" I can be very loud, energetic and inyaface; is somebody whose nature is to be quiet and passive necessarily any less determined to overcome their problems. Also readers should not be misled by the humourous, upbeat tone. I have written this at some distance, the book having been written about three years three years after my stroke but the jokey style reflects my attitude through the first months. My refusal to remove the humour did cost me a UK publishing deal but as I said, money was never my objective. A version with some necessary changes was published in the U.S.A. but the publisher has now gone out of business so copyright reverts to me and I have chosen to make A Stroke Of Luck available free online.
(The book will be available to buy later in the year as I need a few books to kickstart the print media caralogue of my Greenteeth Multi Media venture.)

Having said all that I hope what is written may give encouragement but would never presume to think myself capable of providing a set of tools with which to build your new life. All I can wish for is that in reading of my difficulties and how they were overcome (or worked around) you might gain inspiration. If I make you laugh as well that will be a bonus.

One suggestion made to me by a medical professional was that simple language should be used because "stroke patients are easily confused and will have difficulty in understanding." EXCUSE ME - HELLLOOOO. Wake up and smell the coffee guys. Those ideas are twenty years out of date. We make have difficulty with memory, with expressing ourselves or with physical speech defects but brain damage does not mean we are morons. Most strokes and brain injuries do not affect the intellect, we are still the same people. The language and style therefore reflect the way in which I write fiction, (except that the expletives are omitted) to offer you anything less than my best would be an insult.

By all means try some of the things I did if you think they will help. A flippant approach ("I’m not going to take this thing seriously, its only a stroke.") seems to have worked for other people as well as myself. Humour is the most important tool in the whole kit. But remember, we are all individuals and in each case the methods we will find successful are going to be very personal. If you find something that you believe is doing you good (and it doesn’t hurt too much) stick with it.

There are no magic cures, no rules and nobody is marking your progress. It is not obligatory to fight back from a stroke and take part in the London Marathon though some people have. I know of one young woman who had a brain haemorrhage at twenty three. Later when she married she told doctors of her intention to start a family and was told not to be stupid. A couple of years later she had twins. They will be six or seven years old now. But there are no fixed targets or goals. To achieve a quality of life that brings you happiness and contentment is to succeed.

Good Luck.

Ian Thorpe

Teri and me on holiday in France, I think it was 1991 or 2. Maybe we should have used something more up to date but we thought "what the hell, we look so happy."

3 - A Thumbnail biography. The Author was a successful Information technology Management Consultant when his life was abruptly changed in May 1997. At the age of forty eight he had a massive stroke that was to leave the left hand side of his body completely paralysed from the neck down. At the time Ian had spent more than ten yers constanly travelling and living out of a suitcase and was thinking of downshifting his career commitments. He says "I wanted to get off the corporate treadmill but that was a hell of a way to do it. Educated at one of the old Independent Grammar Schools, The Priory in Shrewsbury and later at Eccles Grammar in Manchester, our hero was certainly no academic whizz - kid, preferring to spend his lessons gazing out of the classroom window while wandering around the Galaxy with Dan Dare, fighting oppression in medieval Sherwood with Robin Hood or taming the wild west with the Texas Rangers. The eventual exam results were a disaster and although daydreaming is largely responsible the change from the Priory's semi - classical curriculum to the more prosaic teaching at Eccles in the final years of secondary school may be in some way responsible. In later life Ian has come to appreciate the quality of his early secondary education saying that it taught him to think for himself. He told me, "In those days secondary education came in two flavours, one was academic or factory fodder. Now everybody seems to be thrown on the same pile but in every walk of life individualism seems to be frowned on. I was once told by the CEO of a client company We don't want managers who think for themselves, they only rock the boat. People who do as they are told get on much better that's why we like modern education. But when that CEO's generation are gone who will make the decisions?" In spite of that Ian clings to a lifelong belief that selective education is wrong. Great education should be available to everybody and young people helped to find the areas in which they excel. After the poor results at school Ian's career was chequered. He moved through a series of office jobs, acquired an odd assortment of exam passes at night school, packed it all in to go to America where his grandfather was born, returning rather quickly when the authorities, their interest attracted by the US connection, started making noises about foreign travel on behalf of Uncle Sam. Viet Nam was the most likely destination. After several years of drifting through various jobs Ian became a market stallholder, travelling around the North of England in a van loaded with clothing. It was an enjoyable if not always a lucrative way of life and the freedom was ideal for somebody whose only serious ambition was to be a poet and novelist and carried on until the responsibilities of family life forced a change. He tells that he knew partner of twenty - seven years Teri was a soul mate the moment they met. "She was wearing a night - dress I like people who don't waste time." Teri will confirm this but points out that the garment had a full lining added and was not flimsy or see through. AND she made her boyfriend wait a few months before he found out what she wore under it. Despite that initial restraint on Teri's part the courtship progressed, culminating in a rather desperate and undignified dash to the altar. David was born a few months later. After marriage it was difficult to settle and another series of office and factory jobs followed. A move into the computer business came when Ian was working in a large electronics factory and shop floor mates proposed him as their shop steward. One day the section manager sidled up and whispered that management were disappointed to see somebody with so much ability wasted on the shop floor and that there were some vacancies in the computer section at the nearby regional office. "I had found a career by accident but to be honest, though I have progressed it was not because I was ever a brilliant technologist. For several years I did not take computers very seriously, it seemed to me our purpose was to generate vast amounts of printout that nobody would ever look at." To liven up a often dull routine of shiftwork Ian started writing. He was making a small impact when with a second child on the way redundancy threatened. A return to market trading seemed the favourite option but the country was deep in recession and conditions were not good. An Information Technology recruitment agency suggested Ian take up freelance work as a self employed consultant. The first contract lasted two and a half years by which time the country had pulled out of recession and the eighties boom was starting. There was a skill shortage and contracts were thick on the ground The next life changing moment was when a colleague who worked in sales said "you'll always get work as a tekkie but you're throwing away a lot of money. You're good with words. Lose the screwdriver and be the guy who gets the reports, documentation, policy and strategy documents together." The advice was good. Contracts in London's financial district, the European Commission in Luxembourg, the Banking sector in Paris and in many large businesses in the UK and Europe followed. This is how Ian remembers that decade. "It was a life experience I would not have missed. I saw so much, met so many people, it was years on an adrenalin rush. Because of family circumstances the others could never move to where I was and I suppose the added stress of travelling home each weekend contributed to the way my career ended. But really it was great. How many people could have phoned their wife one morning and said "Get down to London, check in at the Sherlock Holmes Hotel and I'll meet you there around six. We're going out." Teri had always wanted to go to the Albert Hall, Victoria Wood is one of her favourite entertainers and when I heard there were tickets available I thought GO FOR IT! I suppose the life I have lived created that impulsive, cavalier attitude but the one thing I have learned in business is that when one considers the world we have built, there is very little sanity in it. I suppose the defining moment was during the Stock Exchange deregulation in nineteen - eighty six. I was with a team installing new technology when the old trading floor closed for the last time. The dealers, allegedly prudent guys who look after our money, had got hold of battery powered water pistols and were filling the with water pistols and drenching each other. It was sheer madness. All those years I had been rebuked for not taking anything seriously, I was right! Ian carried on, working mainly in London but with assignments all around the UK and working visits to other European cities until in 1996 he was recruited to join an anglo French team who would be responsible for building an alternative to the Swedish state owned communications network. Now read on.....

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