It's as easy as picking up a pen. Really?

Writing is what I do. It's been my raison d'etre ever since I was at school and even now, 40 years later, it's still what I love.

News stories of 400 words, football match reports of 800 words, 'think-pieces' of anything up to 2,000 words, all flow easily. I have 14,000 words of a book about my recovery sitting on the back-burner somewhere in my computer and I am 8,000 words into a novella which I intend to publish in the spring.

I know it's a wonderful gift and something happened this week which made me realise how fortunate I am to have it and how lucky I am still to be able to use it.

My stroke damaged my left side and although I recovered the use of my left arm and hand (my writing hand, that is) fairly quickly, there is still some residual weakness. Carrying a hot cup of coffee can be inadvisable to the point of foolishness, my left hand sometimes curls up into a ball of its own accord and while I am able to write using a pen or pencil, I would prefer not to - it's too painful.

In the college course I'm undertaking, I use my laptop computer for the purposes of note-taking, typing with one (sometimes two - get me!!) fingers of my right hand. But this week, as part of a mock exam, I had to handwrite for 25 minutes then, after a break of about 15-20 minutes, for another half-hour.

Reader, it was agony. My wrist quickly stiffened up and began to ache; the dull ache transmitted itself up my arm towards my elbow. After 15 minutes, the apparently simple act of gripping a pen was difficult. A few more minutes and my handwriting, never particularly legible at best, was a spidery and child-like scrawl. I could hardly hold the pen, never mind write with it. I couldn't wait to get back to the security of a computer keyboard. And I have only mild left-sided weakness.

I know too many stroke-survivors and other disabled people for whom the apparently simple act of picking up a pen and writing is close to impossible. Those who have to communicate with the world solely by computer keyboard - and who get tired out even doing that. If the stroke or other disability has scrambled their brain sufficiently that even putting the words in the right order is a challenge, it must be Hell.

So I'm lucky to still be able to know what I want to say and to be able to say it coherently, even if it is via computer keyboard. But the realisation this week that something I love doing is still a huge challenge, more than two years post-stroke, was just a little frightening.