It was an evening in October like any other at that point in my life. In my late 60s, with my parenting role as a mother-of-three now reduced to grandmothering a teenager, I was at the tail end of a career as a journalist and author, and two years into a new career as a carer. The switch was partly to research a book on ageing (rewarding emotionally if not financially).
My day had been stressful. I had left home at 7.30am to be with my first client of the day, a 99-year-old spinster who I helped to wash, dress and breakfast. From there I drove to the home of a terminally ill academic – understandably irascible – who needed similar intimate care. Then it was off to spend three hours with a 90-year-old widow whose total lack of a short-term memory meant she endlessly repeated herself.
A further two-hour stint with another client with early-onset Alzheimer’s ended at 6pm, when I clocked off. Exhausted, I nipped to my neighbour’s for a quick drink and a packet of crisps (supper) as an antidote to the stresses of the day.
I must have gone through the motions of bathing and going to bed that night (divorced for more than 20 years, I live alone in a cottage in Oxfordshire), but I have no recall of doing so and all I remember between that glass of wine and finding myself in the Royal Berkshire Hospital a day later was trying, and failing, to open the back door of my cottage to let my dog out the following morning.
It is perhaps ironic that my specialist subject as a writer had become ageing. I had written a well-received book entitled How Not To Get Old, in which I had attempted to future-proof my body and my brain by taking up a range of new activities, from learning a musical instrument to boxing.
Moreover, I prided myself on keeping up with everything going on in the world, maintaining a keen interest in fashion and social media, for example. In the process I had – mistakenly – come to think that I really could hold back time.
Jane Gordon’s book, How Not To Get Old, saw her attempt to future-proof her body and brain
But at some point during the night I had a stroke. A stroke! The knowledge that, despite my somewhat arrogant conviction that I had the physical and mental agility of a 40-year-old, I had suffered an ischaemic attack – where a blockage cuts off the blood supply to part of your brain – was devastating.
Not that I immediately accepted the diagnosis. I was insistent I’d just had an allergic reaction to the magnesium supplement I’d taken for the first time the previous day. In fact, for much of the 15 hours I spent in A&E – accompanied by my two daughters (one of whom, Bryony, is a Daily Mail columnist) – I have only fleeting memories.
I later discovered Bryony had phoned me that morning and was so worried by my confused speech that she had called an ambulance. The story of my ongoing recovery can only really be seen through the diary entries I made after I was discharged from hospital. The following are a few of the more lucid extracts…
Sunday – finally home a week after my stroke
This permanent feeling of being slightly intoxicated (drunk without a drink) is probably what is keeping me going. If I had total clarity I might slip into a deep depression. Because I am so easily distracted, I can avoid thinking about my cognitive decline and try to believe I have some sort of future in which I can be a useful, independent member of society.
The occupational therapist who assessed me today told me I was lucky because my speech is unaffected but warns of memory issues, cognitive concerns and post-stroke fatigue.
Monday
I am raging about the call I just had from the locum GP. He told me I need to accept that probably I have either vascular dementia or Alzheimer’s. I am feeling very alone, tired and scared. I need help and encouragement, not the casual dismissal of my GP. I do have memory blanks but surely there are ways of working new neural pathways?
Have got to fight this. This time last week I was juggling work and home and family. What happened?
Tuesday
It’s 7am and I am awake and feeling a little less confused. I think I slept better last night. I need a strategy for recovery. I need to bring some sense of order back into my life. Good news. I just remembered my address! Even my postcode!
Everything is a muddle but I don’t believe the GP is right. The idea of not being able to work and becoming financially dependent on my children (with only my state pension to live on) is terrifying. I am not ready to evolve into an emotionally needy intellectually challenged old lady.
In defiance I post a new picture of myself on Instagram, with tousled hair and slick of red lipstick, accompanied by an ambiguous message as a kind of ‘reports of my death have been exaggerated’ statement.
Jane had a haircut after her stroke, hoping it would give her what her granddaughter calls a ‘glow up’
Wednesday
Being visually out of sync post-stroke is becoming frustrating. Everything is foggy today. Worse, it is affecting my movement; I am no longer as steady on my feet and my younger daughter has sent me a worrying catalogue full of ‘aids to independent living’ – colourful canes, walking frames and mobility scooters. On the plus side – oh God, what is the plus side? I’ve forgotten!
Thursday
Have just had my first post-stroke coffee and it’s cheered me up almost as much as champagne (now forbidden). Caffeine. My old friend.
Friday
I find it difficult to hold a thought. I am easily distracted. I have the memory of a warthog (confirmed by a visit from my occupational therapist) and I am ridiculously emotional – but with the support of family I am feeling vaguely positive.
On a soppy note, I am so grateful for them and have so much love for them. Just remembered I had a long, lovely FaceTime with my 33-year-old son in Texas yesterday. That is the one unexpected blessing of my stroke – time to talk to my favourite people in the world.
Saturday
Life has become much simpler since my stroke perhaps because I am (simpler, that is!) I am so looking forward to going shopping today – my neighbour Jeannie is driving me.
There was a time when shopping was my main recreational activity (this was back in the sex and shopping 80s and 90s) and I have the same excitement today even though it is just to Waitrose and back.
Am missing the dog (in Cornwall with Bryony) because a) he is my personal trainer forcing me out for walks whatever the weather and b) the sound of him snoring gently at the end of my bed at night is so comforting.
The story of my ongoing recovery can only really be seen through the diary entries I made after I was discharged from hospital, says Jane
Monday
Some thoughts on vanity. How ludicrous that despite my inability to see properly or remember my own name, I am still so vain. At least with alcohol off limits and no real enthusiasm for food I am feeling thinner. But how trivial to be thinking about weight. Is this just the eternal female condition or rather female conditioning? The belief that even at my age I am still valued by my looks, wrinkled and ravaged though they are.
Tuesday
An uplifting (not!) list of the things worrying me. 1) The possibility, as I have been warned, of another even more debilitating stroke. 2) The sense of failure that I haven’t had a husband since 2003 (maybe that will ease when the dog returns home as my significant other). 3) The worry I will not be able to work again. Meanwhile have been trying the simplest Sudoku and am appalled at how clueless I am. It’s disheartening.
Wednesday
It’s just after noon and I am on my second romcom of the day. I am watching the kind of movies I would never usually admit to and weeping like a baby. What has happened to me? That said, I seem able to grasp a complex plot when I am reading one of the challenging Booker-nominated novels my daughter has been cunningly (and kindly) leaving at my bedside. So, there is hope…
Thursday
I have this fantasy that my visit to Specsavers will magically take me back to my pre-stroke self when I only occasionally needed over-the-counter reading glasses. Being able to see clearly, finally getting rid of that ‘drunk without a drink’ vision is exciting. Chose two pairs of the same severe glasses that dispel (at least in the mirror) any suggestion I have cognitive difficulties.
When my glasses arrive in a couple of weeks – providing the therapists have signed me off – I will be able to drive again.
Friday
Woke up with a worrying headache that won’t go away. Keep repeating the acronym used to identify symptoms of a stroke: FAST (Face Arms Speech Time).
By early evening I am so stressed I call an ambulance. The medics are kind and comforting and deliver me to A&E back at the Royal Berkshire. It’s scary, chaotic and crowded with people, some of whom are drunk and aggressive (how do the staff cope?). I am given a cursory examination and told to wait for various tests including an MRI.
At 2.30am, I finally see the consultant who tells me – with a reassuring smile – that I’m not having another stroke and that I should go home, stop worrying and ‘get on with life’. I cry grateful tears all the way home in a taxi.
Tuesday
It’s been a long but good day in which I have been signed off by the occupational therapists, had a haircut I love and bought myself some new cosmetics that I hope will give me what my granddaughter calls a ‘glow up’.
Have also informed my car insurance company of my stroke and taken delivery of my new glasses. Tomorrow I can drive.
Wednesday
Had tearful reunion with Zorro my dog, back home from an extended stay with my daughter. Am feeling so much better since regaining the responsibility for feeding and exercising him, and driving the roads of Oxfordshire without mounting the pavement.
One of the stranger side-effects of my stroke is the loss of my sense of direction (my family will say nothing new here). The gaps in my memory don’t just involve recent events, they also include once familiar places.
With Zorro in the passenger seat, I set off on my first journey. I am driving like the old folk who used to exasperate me as I tooted and overtook them. Worse, I suffer the humiliation – when I return to the Waitrose car park – of taking at least 20 minutes to locate my Mini. But it is liberating to be mobile again.
Sunday
Discovered that the family have been secretly tracking my movements since I got back in my car. It’s my birthday weekend and my elder daughter has organised lunch at a fabulous hotel not too far from my home. It does, though, involve me driving a tricky route that involves a motorway (my first post-stroke).
I set off early and, with the help of my sat nav, am fine until I get confused as to which lane to leave the M4. I get so lost I find myself on a construction site and, through tears, call my daughter. ‘We know where you are, Harry’s on his way to find you,’ she tells me. There is something enormously comforting about the thought my children – however far away they are – can keep tabs on their batty old mother and send their husbands out to rescue me.
Monday
I have, apparently, six months in which to attempt to regain what mental clarity I may have lost. The first three to six months post-stroke are considered the Golden Period when the brain is most plastic and able to recover.
In addition to Sudoku, Wordle and Codeword, I have been playing memory games such as My Aunt Went To Paris and Pelmanism (mostly with Bryony and my granddaughter) but am still struggling with capital letter words – names, places – otherwise known as having a senior moment.
Have grasped the Baker/baker Paradox – how it is easier to remember the lower case word because your brain jumps to existing knowledge of the profession (bread, bakery), than when it is a person’s name where there is no link to other information. Am now making mental connections when meeting someone or going somewhere and it’s working.
Every day I feel more like me.
Saturday
Am at the end of my first week back working with a few of my old clients and writing (my book and journalism) and have taken my family’s advice and, somewhat reluctantly, embarked on the Couch To 5K challenge.
I do worry that in pursuing a healthier lifestyle (no alcohol, no delicious treats and regulated exercise), I am turning into a sanctimonious old bore. But needs must and today I went on my first 5K outing which, partly due to the dog’s need to socialise and my own inability to do more than stroll, took all afternoon.
But I did it and felt such a rush of gratitude for my family and friends who have given me so much kindness and encouragement that I found myself (yet again) blinded by tears.
Dare I think of my stroke as a second chance at life?
