Patrick Byrne

I had my stroke 6 years ago, I was in hospital for an angiogram and this caused my stroke.  I had heart problems in the past and had to have a triple by-pass 12 years ago.  The doctor said the angiogram can cause clots in 1 in every 1,000 people and I just happened to be one of the unlucky ones.  At least I was in the best place to have my stroke, the hospital! 

When I was younger I was a terrible worrier, I had to teach myself not to worry.  Now I have gone from one extreme to the other, I couldn’t give a fiddlers when I had my stroke, I knew I was in the hospital and they would look after me.   I just think that’s life, I mean you could get knocked down crossing the street.

My stroke mainly affected my speech and my memory and I developed aphasia [a difficulty in producing or comprehending spoken or written language].  I never knew about aphasia, I thought that stroke just affected people physically.  The first time I heard the word aphasia was when I started working with my speech and language therapist.  Physically I was fine but I was mixing up all my words and I couldn’t understand what people were saying to me.  I thought I was speaking but I was talking rubbish! 

I also had trouble reading. After my stroke my family had to write down short sentences so I could understand them.  For a long time I couldn’t read full sentences but then one day at home I picked up a newspaper and I could read it, my brain had found a new pathway that allowed me to read again.

After I left hospital I went to live with one of my sisters. I couldn’t live by myself, I would have been lost.  I was a plumber and a tiler before the stroke but now I could only do light work.  I have problem understanding money and numbers, so going to the shop can be difficult.  My family has to manage my finances for me. 

It took a year and a half of working with the speech and language therapist to sort out my speech.  I used to get the bus up to the Baggot Street Hospital every week; I can’t drive anymore because I developed seizures after my stroke. The one thing about therapy is improvement is very slow, the brain takes time to heal and it takes a lot of work.  You need a lot of patience to go through therapy.  I’m not surprised that a lot of stroke patients when they get so far decide to give up on therapy.  I had a mild stroke but it took a lot of work with me to work on the aphasia and the memory.  We had to work on both separately to achieve results.  I was lucky my family were there to give me support. 

Now, I can live alone again. I get home help for an hour and a half three times a week and my family come to stay at the weekends.  There’s no support group near me but I live seven miles from Carlow town so I think if there was one there it would be helpful for a lot of stroke survivors in the area. 

After my stroke I’d no interest in television or sport anymore. I used to be a keen sportsman, I played hurling, football and soccer but now the interest is gone.  It was two or three years before I turned on the TV because before that I wouldn’t have had a clue what they were saying.  Now I like to read and I walk a lot.  I like philosophy and gardening and I grow my own vegetables. 

As I said, I developed seizures after my stroke. The letter from the hospital to my GP when I was being discharged said they didn’t know what was causing these or whether they were TIA’s or seizures.  They discovered that they were seizures but they didn’t know what was causing them so it took a long time to find the right medication. I was supposed to see a neuropsychologist in the hospital but the appointment was missed or cancelled, I never really found out what happened with that. 

Last year, I had a really bad seizure – usually they were mild – but this one was an absolutely frightening experience. Luckily my sister found me.  After my big seizure I was very anxious so my speech and language therapist set up an appointment for me with Headway [an organisation supporting people affected by brain injury].  I had a few sessions with their counsellor which has helped me a lot.