Everyone's stroke is different so don't compare me.

Something I'd get on a regular basis was people comparing my stroke to their grandparents or someone they knew who had, had a stroke. ''Yeah you'll get your hand back my granddad did after a year'' to be honest, I wasn't found until the next morning and wasn't thrombolise d so the blood clot was still damaging my brain for hours after I'd probably had it. Don't tell me what's gonna come back and what's probably not. Don't compare my stroke to someone you know might of had one and definitely don't talk to me as if you were with me from day one. There's nothing more that upsets me to be honest. I'm just dealing with the fact I've actually had one and trying to get my life back. I really don't need your 'trying to help' comments because it doesn't.

Rant over, and hopefully it sticks in people's heads 

''Lizzie, will you run after me?''

I knew it was coming, he'd asked his granddad, dad and I was the only other one waiting for him to have a run around after we'd spent an hour watching a film I didn't remember but apparently watch every year (stroke brain) 

Isaac my favourite little boy (my nephew) whom I adore more than anything, ''can you chase me Lizzie?'' Luckily my step dad just replied 'no Isaac no ones chasing you today we're all tired' 

Maybe one day I will chase him again, maybe one day I can chase my own child  (definitely not as fast as I might of before) but maybe one day.. That's my goal, if I reach the goal of learning to run it'll make me so happy 

To my darling nephew Isaac. I will chase after you one day and will always love you no matter what, even when you fart during the whole film and ask my mum if she's the same age as Santa Claus  

Baths aren't the same

So because of my epilepsy and stroke I have to have help getting in and out of a bath, my mum bless her sits outside the door on the noisy step waiting for the 'mum! I'm ready' call to get me out of the bath, ''right Liz put your right leg over the bath and balance on your left'' 

And every time I forget so I get her to repeat it, it's so bad now that I literally can't be bothered to have baths, you get in them to; relax, chill, have a face mask and just try to forget everything. 

but when you're sitting on a Matt that stops you slipping so you don't drown and have a cushion behind your head to stop you smacking your head, and knowing you have a poor person waiting outside for the wretched call of  

'I'm ready now''  and opening the door to a girl just sitting in a bath, that's gone cold by the time she's tried to spend in there, struggling to actually stand up to leave it, skin so wrinkly and brain so confused she physically needs to be lifted out as if she's still paralysed in her leg. 

That's the baths I have, not relaxing, not enjoyable or long, just me shivering in the bath tub because the waters so shallow so I can't drown if I had a sezuire and because if I were to lay down is be stuck and couldn't get myself up as I'm so weak in my arms. 

It's the little things I miss the most. Like relaxing and de stressing in the bath tub 

Welcome to the world Lizzie.

Today I left a workplace  i've worked at  since I was 15/16. Standing on the watch counter, trying so hard to sell watches to the people that probably just wanted to try a Michael Kors on for the sake of having touched something Michael Kors, with the same excuse for not buying it;
''oh i'll wait till Christmas, I have no money till pay day''
''Oh i'm so skint at the moment, but it's nearly my birthday so i'll ask for one for that :)''

I then got made redundant because the counter was moving to the jewellery section, as we weren't ''selling enough''
This cause so much stress as I was only 16/17 when it happened.

You spend your whole working time thinking ''yeah I like this job, I get free watches, I meet people everyday, I'm still studying, I'm still selling watches and earning money.

I then moved to Oasis where I was so happy, selling clothes, getting discount, making friends and getting on with my life and still working in the same place, so I knew the layout, how bitchy it can be, how to treat the customers that talk to you like shit.


What do you do when you have something so life changing that just listening to someone talk about the company tires you to the point that you literally want to cry.


I've loved working in Fenwick and i've loved how the staff ( some) have treated me, but I need to get on with my life and leave the 'old me' behind. This is the next stage of my recovery.

I already feel the stress being released, being sucked out of me and taken off my shoulders.

Goodbye to the old Lizzie and welcome to the world to the 'new Lizzie'
your journey starts now.

I don't understand

I sit through endless hospital appointments and doctors talk at me, doctors that don't really know how to talk to me and haven't actually read through my notes to the point where I literally want to cry, it's all to much, it takes away my pain and fear of everything feeling like it's going to get better. 

How do you overcome the fear of feeling like your brain and body is eating you up slowly as well as trying to take in advice by different doctors for endless illnesses that aren't being checked regularly.

J'ust stop'

Please just stop, make them shut up and take the care of atleast trying to help me understand.

I honestly don't like this life, this life is so much more stressful and irritating, 

'What medication are you on elizabeth' 

Ummm... 'You do realise I have memory loss'

Don't treat me like I understand you, I've tried writing everything down in a notebook. 

I'm so sick of sitting in waiting rooms listening to other people making friends with everyone waiting aswell, it's so bad that when I stood up and a man who'd been talking so loud about his health went 

'See there's always someone much worse off than you' 

Thought the next 20minutes I had to sit through a doctor talking at me, thinking 'do I really look that bad?' 'Am I really that obviously unwell' I started to cry and the doctor looked so confused, I just had to explain that it happens and nod to everything he said to me from then on

A nurse said she saw me on the news and that I was doing so well, makes me feel so ill knowing the nurses know me as a regular visitor to their waiting room. 

The cry for help through the eyes of the elders

I braved the stroke ward walk through with Dan and succeeded after a panic attack at the doors, you need a nurse to let you out so I walked over to a nurse I was 'comfortable' around, a 'friendly face' you could say..

'Wow well don't you look better!' 

'Ha, thankyou!' 

Two older patients were sitting in their beds/bed side hospital chair, their names above them as if they were waiting to be 'picked up' I glimpsed quickly as I walked through, the lady too my rights head shot up and she just glared with a look of; helplessness and 'cry for help' in her eyes, The man to my left, with a 'Why me, get me out of here' look.

 I spent everyday in that stroke ward, watching people who loved and cared for me, pop in and out, some had travelled miles and some not as far. I saw faces I didn't recognise and faces I hadn't seen for years, I probably gave them 'the look' while I sat there unable to hold a conversation and making their trip to 'see me' pointless. The endless amounts of hugs I recieved and kisses to my cheek (the side I could feel) and amount of different people giving me the  

'You'll get there talk' I couldn't take it in or really process anything that was being said or listen to you without wanting too fall asleep. 

But To those who took the time effort and thoughtfulness to visit me on that ward I can promise you, it never went unnoticed or understood, you helped me get here today and you will always be the main part of my recovery, I'm sorry I couldn't give you the old me to chat to and give you loads of laughs and huge conversations to go back home and tell you're friends 'yeah she's doing really well' instead you got the worst stage of me, a stage where I was just like those older patients, the tears the cries the tight hugs that never wanted to let go and the sorrow ness that was in my eyes where I'd just want to walk out that ward with you. Dan looked at me 

'you're like a mini celeb in here' 

'Yeah but I'd rather not be babe'  

we laughed and came home. But I will never get the stares out of my head and will never let go of the sadness in their eyes. 

Intensive arm therapy & the stroke ward

So tomorrow I start a 6week course of intensive arm therapy, With the lady who taught me to; stand up, stopped me walking until I could walk without swinging my leg, taught me to walk upstairs and taught me how to bend & straighten my leg,
I'm so excited, this woman is amazing!!

I have to walk through the stroke ward to actually get to where it is, The gym that i'd be wheeled too every morning, half asleep dreading Physio crying my eyes out and thinking 'god get me out of here' passing the older people laying in their beds being fed through tubes and having their partner sitting next to their beds holding their hands, trying to comfort them but not knowing what to do,  I'm terrified, I walked through with my step dad to give back the wheelchair after about 5months, obviously the nurses all recognised me
''Oh my god look, look who it is!!!!''
''Lizzie look at you! you look amazing, hows things at home?!''
''We never get visitors! this is fantastic you're doing so well!''

Maybe because they only see the people that get bought to them unable to do anything, and sit there crying unable to stop, wondering why their brains had given up on them, (I did this daily) the first week I stayed in hospital on that ward I used to ring my nurses bell every 10minutes because i'd need someone to just hug me and tuck me in, I was unable to realise life doesn't stay like that;
 life gets 'easier' but it needs to be harder to get to that stage, you wont be the person you are at that stage; unable to sit yourself up because you're paralysed and your muscles had gone, unable to transfer to a toilet seat because you can't move your leg, unable to cut your food up, unable to smile without someone staring closely at your mouth because it's wonky, unable to go a day without crying, unable to see your hospital visitors without bursting into tears endlessly repeating; ''get me out of here, I don't like it, i'm scared, I hate my life, I wish it killed me, I want this to stop, I want to just sleep''
No wonder these people find it so hard, I would love to just sit there and tell them it wont be like it forever, they will get better, you just need to be strong and even though it's the hardest thing to even be right now you can do it, recovery is about your motivation, which unfortunately for me that part of my brain was destroyed 'burnt away' as I call it now, (mainly because the F.A.S.T advert shows her brain burning.
Too be honest I should tell myself all of the above but it's hard when you're stuck waiting patiently feeling jealous of everyone around you that can do all the stuff you want to do.
I hate that it mainly happens to older people, makes me want to just cry, (possible stroke side affect). But I can't and never want to imagine my nan or Granddad feeling how I do, and loosing 60 years of independence, feeling like it was pointless sitting there watching countdown or doing their weekly quiz clubs.
Turning into something they never thought they'd become, living the rest of their lives under examination and endless brain scans, wondering ''will it happen again'' The older people aren't as strong to get through it, their bodies are weaker and how they walk isn't taken into account as much as it was for me, ''because i'm young'' and ''have the rest of my life to walk'' That breaks my heart.
More than when I sit there feeling sorry for myself.

I remember talking to someone about strokes when I was in year 10 (I think) and saying
''apparently you smell burnt toast before you have a stroke!''
''oh my god that's crazy, I wonder why''
I laugh so much when I think of this conversation. I try so hard to remember who I had it with but what the actual fuck, was I drunk? was I mad? and too people that think this is true,
 No you don't.  You get severe pins and needles going through the side of your body thats slowly dying in your brain, You feel your mouth drooping and you can't move it because it's too stiff. You get a twitch in you arm and you can feel your shoulder slowly going to the floor ( for me, I was in bed so I could just feel it getting weaker and heavier to lift).



So yeah, luckily Dan's coming with me, because I was so scared to walk through the stroke ward again. But lets hope this physio can work some 'magic' on my arm.