To mark International Women’s Day, a Co Down woman is hoping that her health battle will inspire others to keep fighting in their recovery.
Nicola Shaw from Ballygowan suffered a stroke 44.
Revealing how she was discharged from hospital after five days, she has spoken about how she struggled with receiving no signposting or follow-up appointments.
“The message seemed to be ‘you have had a stroke, but you’re not too bad so on you go’,” she said.
The impact on Ms Shaw’s life has been significant.
But her determination to see that others do not face similar paths saw Ms Shaw feed her experience back to the health services, prompting them to undertake a quality improvement initiative as a result.
Taking ill in December 2022, Ms Shaw recalled how it “it felt scary and isolating - I was ok, but I wasn’t ok”.
“From the health service’s perspective, I had a minor stroke, but it had a major impact on mine and my family’s life,” she said.
Returning home from hospital, she started her recovery.
“I was a really active person before the stroke. I wasn’t long started a new job, I was exercising lots, I was planning travels and then suddenly I was at home, not able to do very much,” she said.
“I was really fatigued, and I struggled with that.
“The post stroke fatigue was like a brain fog for me, particularly around word association.
Join our Care Services Advisory Group and help shape our services 📣
— Northern Ireland Chest Heart & Stroke (@nichstweet) February 28, 2024
We want to listen to those affected by chest heart and stroke conditions and hear their perspectives, views and feedback to help shape our services.
Find out more and apply at https://t.co/9uxqzBq1he pic.twitter.com/cY5j3HChJK
“I was signed off work to recover and at first I was lucky if I could do just one thing a day, like have a friend come and visit for an hour.”
Ms Shaw said with no support forthcoming from statutory services, she looked for alternative organisations for help and came across Northern Ireland Chest Heart & Stroke (NICHS) who introduced her to two young women who had suffered strokes.
“To see that I was not the only one that something like this had happened to and that life goes on was so helpful” she said.
As well as fundraising for the NICHS, Ms Shaw has also been been highlighting to the health services how the support she received as a young stroke survivor was inadequate.
“I fed back to the medical team that what they class as a minor stroke can have a major impact on the patient, particularly psychologically, something which I felt they had no understanding of,” she said.
