When stroke strikes, part of your brain shuts down. And so does a part of you. Life changes instantly and recovery is tough. But the brain can adapt.

On January 22^nd 2017 when I was 41, I suffered a dissection of the vertebral artery in the back of the neck causing the most horrendous pain I have had the misfortune to experience. The dissection led to a clot resulting in an ischemic stroke. 

Fast forward to hospital and I spent the next 24hours in ICU on morphine undergoing all manor of tests, unfortunately even though my 999 call was for a suspected stroke the hospital failed to test for a stroke until after being in their care for 48hrs where I was then sent for an MRI resulting in the clarification that it was indeed a stroke.

An initial loss of use to one side of my body, ability to speak correctly, severe double vision, loss of feeling to the left side of my body and right side of my head, in their severity were fortunately short lived.

A very scary period for my family and I with an unknown future, and not where I saw my life ending up at 41 years old having to be assisted to go to the toilet and have a wash.

With a great physio team, heaps of determination and fortunately age and fitness on my side I could see progress in my recovery. As I said most of the symptoms were short lived; It took about 3months before my vision was recovered enough to read and a further 3months before I was able to drive. I am lucky, and without the support of my wife, my family, great friends and a fantastic employer I would have been in a far worse place.

I still suffer adversely with vestibular issues, with a further week spent in hospital a couple of years ago with a severe vertigo attack. My skin has a hyposensitivity to hot and cold and as soon as I am under the weather with illness of any sort all these symptoms are heightened.

The vertigo has been the hardest issue to work with, having been pretty fit before my stroke getting back to exercise such as running, swimming and cycling has been difficult with cycling still alluding me, and only managing a spinning bike for fear of coming off on a road bike through the instability.

So now comes the marathon! Running took some time to retrain the brain for the turning of the head at road junctions, etc and now consider myself back to normal in this. I feel I now have a purpose to attempt this feat to one, prove to myself I can do this after a Stroke and two, to enable money to be raised for a important charity, The Stroke Association. The Stroke Association were there to help me and my family. They also help so many others that have had a far worse experience to the speed of recovery or don’t have that support network close to them and act as a vital support network when you leave the hospital and become an outpatient.

I have never run anything like this distance before and will take many hours of training to get there. With my determination and the knowledge I will be raising money for a good cause it will be achieved.

Please give generously and make all the hard work worth it.
Thank you!!!