"I suddenly found that I couldn’t speak, my legs were numb and I couldn’t stand, my arm and hand just wouldn’t move….I was terrified"
These are Anne-Marie’s words and describe how she felt when she had her stroke. There was no warning and Anne-Marie was simply at home one Sunday evening when she collapsed and found herself unable to call out, to move, to summon help in any way.
The photo, taken by Helen Jermyn, shows Anne-Marie with Thrive therapist Tony working in the garden of our Battersea Garden Project.
Afterwards, she spent 5 months in hospital and then faced 10 weeks of extensive physiotherapy and speech therapy so she could start learning to talk again. Anne-Marie and her family not only had to deal with the physical effects of her stroke, but also the emotional problems, insecurities and depression that often follow.
Before her stroke, Anne-Marie was a busy mother of three children in her 50s, working as a librarian and living with husband David in Fulham. Afterwards, she became one of the 250,000 people every year who have to live with disabilities caused by a stroke.
Anne-Marie was naturally frustrated that her stroke had taken away so much of her life:
"I couldn’t just sit in the wheelchair, feeling that my life had been taken away. I wanted to do something again, get outside the house, meet other people and find a new life for myself. Thrive was my life line, they help me do this."
She needed to build a different life and Thrive provides a way forward and gives Anne-Marie much needed hope. Thrive gives her the chance to practice talking and communicating with others, with people outside her family who don’t necessarily know what she needs. We also give her the chance for meaningful activity, for gentle exercise, to meet new people and have something to tell her family about when she goes home.
