A vocal frustration.

“I can’t say it”……….. “no, I really can’t say the word ‘it’, nor any other words”!

A stroke ‘struck me down’, very unexpectedly and very inconveniently at the young age of 24 years, and on a day that was supposed to end with big celebrations, because it was New Year’s Eve! So, instead of my Fiancée and I celebrating being in our very first home together, I started New Year’s Eve off in a collapsed semi-conscious heap on the bathroom floor, and to be precise the unfortunate collapse was on the ‘pedestal mat’- ‘the mat around the toilet pan’! Thankfully, both my Fiancée and I aren’t heathens and it wasn’t damp with stale smelling pee, because that would have been embarrassing in the accident and emergency ward at hospital- ‘can you imagine the conversation’- “that’s an interesting aftershave that you’ve got on, what is it ‘eau de urine’, or is it that French fragrance that’s called Oui Wee”?

I went into the ambulance on that cold December morning wearing a pair of ‘boxer shorts’ and a rare limited edition T-shirt, which was my Winter bed ware, whilst in the summertime the addition of any nighttime clothing was an unnecessary hindrance!

The ambulance attended very quickly, because the ambulance station was about 2 minutes away and it was very early in the morning, “well 7 am” and it was also quiet on the roads and in the hospital itself’!

My quick arrival in the hospital was obviously expected because there was a Doctor and 2 nurses waiting for my urgent arrival and they soon stripped my clothing off, BUT they showed no respect for my ‘limited edition T-shirt because that was quickly removed from my pale torso, via the use of scissors! “Yes, scissors, and the cut was directly down the middle and through the artwork”- ‘there was no respect for either my T-shirt or my boxer shorts’ because they suffered a similar fate to my T-shirt and were also subjected to the ‘mad tailors’ scissor frenzy, because they were also cut-off down each leg and discarded!

So, I temporarily lay in this bed, unable to move, talk and soon unable to breathe on my own, but I wasn’t devoid of any colour, and that colour was pale grey!

Talks were ‘taking place’ and my attendance here was very brief and the tailoring services were appalling anyway! I was quickly on the move again and I was heading back outside in the car park- “perhaps there’s no room in the wards I thought”! Thankfully, I would be wrong and the frantic rush was for me to be transferred into an air-ambulance for the quick and direct journey to a larger and ‘better equipped hospital’ in the city, and the fresh cool morning air was making me feel very drowsy now, “well that and a concoction of pills”!

I heard my Fiancée shout “see you ‘up there”, and my immediate thought then was ‘I must be dying and she means when she eventually dies and joins me in heaven perhaps’?

Anyway, that’s all I remember about the helicopter journey, that was underneath the rotor blades and the engine and the noise was enough to give you a headache and I already had one of those”!

So, instead of enjoying herself on New Year’s Eve, my Fiancee was by my bedside, and she eventually returned home with her parents, whilst life, ‘for me’, continued with the aids from a ventilator, a tube that went directly into my stomach and was used to inject the appropriate liquid protein food and another, that came from the bladder and released the urine, and that one really was ‘taking the p*ss’!

My time in a coma was for ‘just under’ a month and then I would have many, many days of long sleeping periods, because I required many other surgical procedures, well it was either the drugs that were necessary or I slept a lot because I had turned into a lazy git”!

My Fiancée would work all-day and then drive a ‘round trip’ of 160 miles to visit me, and sometimes, bless her, she’d have a wasted journey because I might have had one of those pipes/tubes removed during the day, only for me to be in a deep sleep recovering from that operation?

My previous bodily losses would not be recovered by these removals and would need to be regained with long and patient therapy, such as speech therapy, occupational therapy and many long and difficult months and years of physiotherapy!

To regain my speech was very frustrating and to regain my ability to eat and feed myself as was ‘even more’ frustrating, because the ward that I was in, was directly above the kitchens and the daily smells from the fresh food cooking use to rise into our ward via the open windows! I was always sat purposefully upright in bed during mealtimes to receive my liquid delights, and to ‘judge’ the other patients feeding capabilities ‘I guess’!?

My speech was previously a series of monotones and grunts but, they were now becoming ‘more audible’ but I still can’t say ‘it’, nor any other words clearly but it would be slightly easier for the listener to guess the words now, because of the increase of tones!

My eventual patience was rewarded with the final assessment on my throat being successful and my 5 month denial of solid food was treated as though I had been on a desert island for 5 months because I ‘made up’ for lost time, rather quickly, and I put on 3 stone! I had to regain ‘self-discipline’, which was difficult to do with foods on offer, ‘such as’, pasty and chips and chocolate gateau with cream, and I had to have a thickening agent in my drinks which made hot chocolate like a chocolate mousse!

This sudden weight gain had to be lost, in order to manoeuvre successfully in physiotherapy, and I lost 2 stone rather quickly and had similarities with those of a previously pregnant woman, because I had ‘stretch marks’!

’Time is a great healer’, the ‘saying’ goes but it all depends on what you do in that time to help yourself heal?

I continued with daily speech, occupational and physiotherapy and after nearly 11 months in 3 hospitals I could finally return home with my fiancee and my physiotherapy continued at a nearby hospital for many years after that date BUT 3 years later, and after finally returning home we became husband and wife in 1997, and then 17 months after that great day was another great one, as we celebrated the birth of our son.

Emotional speeches had already and previously been made but the day of the christening was emotionally too much, I, we had been on a very long and bumpy journey and I wanted to say something to the Christening party guests but I couldn’t say anything audible, “you’ve got to say something” said my father-in-law “just say thanks for coming or a simple ‘thank you”?

My emotions had taken control of my mind and vocal ability now and even saying a simple thanks- “I just couldn’t say it”!