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Three months after the birth of my second child, I was home alone with my three-month-old baby son, talking on the phone to my best friend, Melanie.

Ever since we’d bonded at work as administrators in the NHS over our love of all things Disney and a shared obsession with the movie Beetlejuice three years earlier, we’d become inseparable.

We often talked on the phone for hours so that day in July 2019, seemed no different. That is, until I couldn’t get my words out.

Mel said my speech came out slurred and that all of a sudden, I wasn’t making any sense at all. She knew straight away it was an emergency.

Mel had a close relative who’d had a stroke roughly five years earlier so, knowing garbled speech like mine was one of the signs, she knew she had to act fast.

Mel immediately contacted my mum (who lived close by), which meant she got to me within six minutes.

However, when she arrived, my front door was locked. With no other option, because my partner wasn’t close by, and I was slipping away with every minute, she then called 999.

Police and ambulance services arrived and smashed the glass on my front door so they could get to me. By that point I was dead weight and unconscious.

The next thing I remember is waking up on the stroke ward at University College London Hospital on what was my 24th birthday.

When I fully came around the doctor’s told me what happened: I’d had a major stroke.

Apparently I’d gone into cardiac arrest in the ambulance, and then again when we arrived at the hospital. Frankly, I was lucky to be alive.

My first thought was of my kids, but Mel had arranged for my sister to look after my son and my daughter was staying with a friend. She saved them from being alone for what could’ve been a whole weekend.

Then the reality of what I’d just been through hit me, yet I simply refused to believe it.

Having worked in a hospital for so long I thought I knew what a stroke looked like; in my mind I couldn’t possibly have had one. I thought to myself: ‘I’m too young. Everyone else in the stroke ward is in their 70s and 80s!’

Of course, it was then explained to me in detail that a stroke can happen to anyone at any age.

In my case, doctors felt the most likely reason was due to something called a patent foramen ovale (PFO) – a small hole in the heart that exists in everyone before birth and most often closes shortly after being born.

I understood but still couldn’t quite believe it. I’d been walking, talking, laughing and doing all my usual things right up to the stroke. What could’ve possibly changed?

Luckily I recovered well and, anxious to get home to my baby boy, was discharged from hospital two days post stroke.

I was informed of the medication I’d now be on – blood thinners to prevent clots – and of my upcoming hospital appointments including something called a bubble echo study.

Also known as a bubble contrast echocardiogram, the test is essentially an ultrasound combined with an injection of microbubbles to assess the structure and function of the heart. And, as it turned out, I did have a PFO.

Suddenly a lot of things in my life made sense. Throughout my life I had continuously complained of chest pains, I’ve had countless ECGs and exams, and just a few months before the stroke I was told I had an irregular heartbeat.

Now we knew what the problem was, we could fix it. In the meantime though, I had to learn to cope with the after effects of my stroke.

Three months after I was discharged I lost my sense of taste. Then I developed weakness down my left side, which made walking difficult, as well as pain and fatigue.

Three months after I was discharged I lost my sense of taste. Then I developed weakness down my left side

My memory was also badly affected – I kept forgetting to do the exercises my physio gave me, or I would put food on to cook and forget about it, so it would burn – but I was determined not to let it beat me.

Six months after my stroke, I returned to my job (which, in hindsight, was too soon) and tried to keep up with the demands of looking after my health, family and other commitments like nothing had changed.

Of course, a lot had.

Going from a fully mobile, athletic and energetic mum to struggling with fatigue and doing my usual daily activities was a major change and I didn’t know how to balance it all.

Fortunately, both my family and Mel were extremely supportive – Mel was someone I could lean on, sometimes literally, without judgement – and I also found the charity Different Strokes.

They support working-age stroke survivors by offering peer support, providing a variety of services to help them and their families reclaim their lives, and a Facebook group where survivors can share their ups and downs as well as get support and advice.

Sharing my story to its 8,000 strong community, I received such a warm response and amazing support from other young stroke survivors. I realised I was not alone.

In fact, with their help, I also recognised that I’d been too focused on getting back to work and needed to turn my focus back to my physical recovery.

For the last year, I’ve been working on my health: I go to the gym three days a week and do exercises like hip abductions and grip strengthening for my hands. I also do 30 minute walks on the treadmill, and it’s all made a huge difference.

Last summer I was even able to take my kids on outings to Thorpe Park and Kew Gardens, and recently we went on the London Eye and to Shrek World.

These activities would have been impossible a few years ago as I just wasn’t physically strong enough. But now I’m getting there.

As proud as I am of my progress though, I still want to raise awareness – especially as Black and Asian people are twice as likely to suffer from a stroke and often have strokes at a younger age.

That’s why I now volunteer with Different Strokes’ Black and Asian Stroke Survivors Project, to encourage people to raise their own medical concerns with their GP.

I had chest pains for years, which I had mentioned to doctors, but I never got the attention I should have until my stroke.

I’m fortunate that my PFO has now been fixed, but if it had been detected earlier and closed, I probably wouldn’t have had a stroke in the first place. All of us, doctors and the general public, must do more to be stroke aware.

I’m only here today thanks to Mel’s quick thinking. Without her, I could’ve been dead. There’s no sugarcoating that one. She saved my life and I’m thankful for that every day.

Do you have a story you’d like to share? Get in touch by emailing jess.austin@metro.co.uk. 

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