Keeping the glass (at least) half-full

Well, I know someone other than me reads these musings because the first thing the Mayor of Tamworth asked me when we met last Thursday evening was whether I’d managed to find a pair of posh shoes. 

Of course, I did and you can see me wearing them as I collected my “Be Tamworth’ badge, thanks to a series of photographs which are on the Mayor’s Facebook page and Twitter feed. 

It was a wonderful occasion and as I’m sure always happens at these events, I came away feeling that all the other recipients were far more deserving of recognition than me. They included my old Tamworth Herald colleague Paul Barber, who has been photographing Tamworth for over 35 years, James Brown of Gold Standard Security, a tireless worker for young people and Ellie Fielding, co-ordinator of Tamworth Breastfeeding Support, among plenty of others and all those who have received awards since the scheme began last June. 

This post was going to be exclusively about last Thursday’s event until something far more important came to my attention. I’ve made a lot of new friends in the strokie community since December 16 2013 and one of the best is the magnificently-named Paula Minx Andersen. Paula cares for her husband Henning, whose stroke seems to have been far more debilitating than mine. She seems to be constantly on the go (as most carers are, of course) but always seems to have that essential ‘glass half-full’ attitude to life. She has recently been snowed under, not just with caring for Henning but also for two ailing and elderly parents. 

All that would seem enough to challenge anyone but over last weekend, she brought to my attention a new blog written by her daughter. Natalie Hunter is a young mother with four children, including 19-month-old twin boys. In the last few days, Natalie has found out that she has bladder cancer. Tomorrow (Thursday May 28), she starts chemotherapy.

She could curl up in a ball and quit on life. Instead, she is writing a blog called Cancer, Me and Them which can be found at thathunterwoman.blogspot.com. Unsurprisingly, it’s a gruelling read but I’d urge you all to take a look and support Nat. She’s doing it, as she said to me, because if it helps one person who is going through what she’s going through, then it is worth it. Which is exactly the reasoning behind my own blog. 

I’ve ‘chatted’ this week with plenty of strokies who I feel are worse off than me. And that was before I’d heard of Natalie. Have a read of her blog; think of her and her four young children when you swear at the train manager because the 5.39 is ten minutes late. Adopt that ‘glass half-full’ approach to life. Be thankful you got up this morning and everything was working normally.

Honestly, it’s the only approach to life. 

A surprise in the morning mail

When I was made redundant from what Mrs Warrior still insists on calling 'a proper job' in December 2010 and set up my own freelance journalism business, I decided that I would start to get involved in things locally.

I was no longer working every evening and I needed to raise my profile, I needed to get to know people who might want press releases written, website copy written, books written - anything which would enable me to make money out of my writing skills.

So I started getting involved in committees, joining groups, getting out there and meeting people. It was good for my business for me to know as many people as possible and it was good for me to meet people and get a feel for what was happening in my town.

In hindsight, of course, I may have done too much. Going out 2-3 nights a week to committee meetings on top of the stress of my freelance job may well have contributed to my health problems and I have now reined in some of my activities (too late, obviously!). I am no longer involved on a regular basis with the local CAMRA branch although I'm still a member. I resigned from the board of Destination Tamworth Findabiz at the end of last year. I stood down as group leader of the Tamworth branch of 4Networking (www.4networking.biz) at the same time although I'm still on the leadership team.

But all that high-profile activity has meant that lots of people in Tamworth know me (although some think I still work for the Tamworth Herald, which I left in 1990). It's meant that lots of people have been watching out for myself and Mrs W since my stroke and keep saying encouraging words.

Yet I still had a surprise when the post came last Friday morning and I opened a letter which turned out to be from the Mayor of Tamworth, inviting me to a civic reception at the Town Hall tomorrow night (May 21). The invitation is part of the Mayor's Be Tamworth scheme, rewarding citizens who go that extra mile for the town. The letter said the invitation was 'in recognition of the support you have given Tamworth and its people over many years."

It's a cliche in these situations for the person involved to say that they don't do it for the public recognition and I genuinely don't. I do it/did it to keep myself busy and because I enjoy being involved in things.

It does mean that I have to go into town this afternoon and look for a new pair of posh shoes, though.....

Spreading the word about stroke awareness

I was sitting in the sun outside a pub in Tamworth on Monday afternoon, having a drink with a former colleague who I hadn't seen for a couple of years, when my phone rang unexpectedly. The call was from a producer at BBC Radio WM in Birmingham.

Regular readers will recall that I appeared on WM in March when I was interviewed on the Graham Torrington Show. I'm not giving any secrets away if I tell you that was a pre-recorded interview done a couple of weeks in advance at a time of my choosing. This time, they wanted me to appear live by phone on the Adrian Goldberg breakfast show the following morning. It was Stroke Awareness Day and they wanted me to talk about my experience.

I don't tend to be at my best in the early morning, having worked evening shifts for 17 years, but this was another chance to publicise the cause of stroke education. "I'll do it, but can we make it as late as possible?" I said. We agreed that they would ring me at 8.35am and I set about telling friends to set their alarms for the following morning.

Late on Monday evening, the BBC rang back to ask how flexible the timing could be? I've dealt with the BBC, nationally and locally, many times and I know nothing is set in stone so I said I could be 'fairly flexible." So I set my alarm for 6am and was just about coherent by the time my phone buzzed at 6.17 the following morning with a message from the producer asking if 7.20am was OK. I said it was and you can hear the results for 30 days from May 12 at http:bbc.in/1HenY2c. My interview starts about 15 minutes into the broadcast.

Having got that done and got Mrs Warrior off to work, I attempted to get a quick power-nap before heading to Derby for another pummelling by my therapist Emily Smedley, who I've mentioned here many times previously. It wasn't my regular Tuesday to visit her but the Derby Telegraph are publishing a feature about our efforts on May 23 and wanted some more pictures.

Feeling a little bit under the weather after my early start, I caught the 11.03am train from Tamworth to Derby - which goes through an area which has a notoriously poor phone signal. It was fortunate, then, that the train was in a good reception area when I took a call from a London number which I didn't recognise. In fact, it was someone from the press department of the Stroke Association, who have my details on file as a media volunteer. Sky News had been in touch with them, looking to interview a male stroke survivor of about my age - could I help?

I explained I was on my way to Derby and couldn't be back at Warrior Towers before 3.45 at the earliest, even if the trains were on time. Would that work?

Sky needed the item for their 5pm bulletin. I thought it was going to be unrealistic but after a series of phone calls between myself, the SA and Sky, it was agreed that a reporter and cameraman would meet me at Warrior Towers at 3.45pm - and I mustn't be late.

Thankfully, the train schedules worked as they should for once and I made it home. As the scene of my stroke is just a few minutes' walk away, Sky got some excellent pictures and the story ran throughout their news bulletins on the evening. It had been a thoroughly tiring day (never mind what Emily had done to me!) but I felt it had done a lot to improve stroke education.

When the Sky reporter and her cameraman were sitting in the kitchen at Warrior Towers, it almost felt as if I was back in the world of journalism again. That's unrealistic because of my health, but what I'm about now is making people more aware about stroke. If my tiring day did just the slightest to further that cause, it was worth it. You can see (but, unfortunately, not hear) the Sky piece on Emily's YouTube channel at https://youtu.be/F4VPP0xM8g8 

A long day - but it was well worth it

In life and in business, it's no good having lots of interesting things to say or a great product to sell if no-one knows about you.

It's why advertising is so important and why getting out and meeting people is so important. It's why I started this blog, why I get up at 6am on some days to go out and meet people at networking events. And it's why, last Friday, I got on a train to go to Manchester to attend a networking lunch.

I was travelling all that way to meet a lady who may be able to help me with my efforts to do public speaking engagements about stroke education. She and I had a couple of very useful discussions and that is now a work in progress, but the day turned into far more than that.

On arrival at Piccadilly Station, I bumped into someone I've known for years and who grew up with many of my best friends who still live in Tamworth. He now lives in Manchester and although we converse regularly on social media, I'm not sure when we last met in person. We've now made plans to go for a drink when I'm back in the city next month, speaking at another meeting of the same group.

At the lunch, I found myself sitting next to a voice and speech coach. I'm sure that was planned by the leadership team of the group, we had a fascinating conversation and are planning to meet again.

And later in the meeting, I found myself talking to a fellow stroke-survivor who I am familiar with through an internet chat group, but had not met. I never expected to be talking to him when I left home that morning, I'm sure he didn't expect to be talking to me that day, but the combination of our skills could be very useful in progressing the cause of education about stroke.

A good day all round, then; not even a slightly convoluted train journey home could ruin it. Of course, I was shattered when I got back to Warrillow Towers; that comes with the territory after busy days. But I'm thankful that I am physically and mentally able to get out, to advertise what I do and spread awareness about stroke. So many stroke-survivors are not.

Life is rarely as bad as it seems at the time

Life as a strokie (and life generally, in fact) is all about keeping things in perspective. I might be having a bad day or a bad week but there is always someone worse off. It's why I don't get too excited about the highs or too down about the lows.

Indeed, one thing the last 15 months has taught me is that there's not much in life which is worth getting overly stressed about.

Hence, when my local hospital rang up this week and demanded my presence at less than three hours' notice for a scan which should have been done months ago, I was mildly annoyed, but not much more.

When our weekend shopping trip proved even more stressful than usual in terms of crowds of people and noisy children, I was wound up for a couple of hours but the feeling soon passed.

When I woke up one morning feeling tired and stressed, I simply cancelled a couple of things that day and resolved to give myself the rest I obviously needed.

And then, one afternoon this week, I saw something posted on an internet group for stroke-survivors. "Not dealing with this stroke malarkey at all well," it said. "So depressed, never felt this bad." As many of us do, I immediately messaged the person involved, firstly to check they weren't about to do anything really silly, then to at least say 'Hello."

We ended up chatting for the best part of a couple of hours, during which it came to light that this person has not only suffered a stroke, but also has Multiple Sclerosis, heart disease and kidney disease. Which changed my slightly gloomy mood very quickly.

So when you go about your daily life this week and you're about to shout at the dustman for not emptying the bin, the kids for not putting their toys away, the road-rage driver who just cut you up or even your other half for leaving toothpaste in the bathroom sink, just take a moment to think of my new friend making the best of life in unbelievably trying circumstances - and get a little perspective.

Being a Warrior

So why 'The Warrior"? I could have titled this blog "Stories of a stroke-survivor," for instance. It's certainly eye-catching, but I thought that there must be plenty of those around the blogosphere.

Then I remembered the nickname which I started to pick up around the business-networking circuit pre-stroke. "Warrior' may well have been a deliberate mispronunciation of Warrillow, but it certainly became a lot more appropriate after December 16 2013. I'm not sure which of my good friends Debbie Huxton or Paul Rimmer used it first (in truth, I'm not sure that they are, either....) but does it really matter?

After my stroke, of course, "The Warrior' became synonymous with my fight to get my life and my mobility back. It became a nickname I used wherever I did talks about my experience and the fact that it sort-of sounds like Warrillow helped.

Then, I joined the Different Strokes Facebook group for stroke-survivors and their carers (The FB group is a closed group, but I recommend their website at www.differentstrokes.co.uk) and 'met' 18-year-old Jade Driscoll-Batchelor from London, who also called herself "The Warrior". Jade has had far worse things happen in her young life than a stroke, which it's not my place to discuss here, but we immediately hit it off and the 'Warrior' nickname cemented our friendship.

Now, I'm not going to be so arrogant as to say that Jade and I are the only two 'Warriors" in the stroke-survivor world, because everyone who survives and fights a stroke or any other life-changing illness is a warrior in my eyes, but I know the 'Warrior' attitude helps both of us (and everyone else, of course) get through the bad days which are an inevitable part of stroke-rehab. It also helps us take on the good days and make the best of them.

So the 'Warrior' attitude seems perfect for this blog. It's why my Facebook profile pic features a Mitsubishi Warrior truck (you don't want to see my face, honestly....) and every once in a while, something happens to remind me how important it is to retain that attitude.

One of those things came this week, when Jade sent me a link to a song by the American heavy metal band Papa Roach. Now being the wrong side of 50 doesn't stop me liking tattoos and heavy metal, as far as I'm concerned. As I've said here before, you're as old as you think you are and only on my really bad days do I feel the wrong side of 50. One of the things which Jade and I share is that love of tattoos and heavy metal, so she was sure I'd appreciate Papa Roach and this song. She's right. Every time I've played it this week, which has been a lot, I've thought of all the warriors I know who fight disability every day of their lives.

Here's the link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qot3Ubz16Jo

The 'delights' of a frustrating week

I might sometimes give the impression here that this stroke-rehab business is becoming easy. I'm walking taller and straighter, I'm getting about more generally; as you saw last week, I'm even running, in a fashion.

And then I have weeks like this one. Weeks that remind me about the joys of being on blood-thinning tablets in our glorious British weather; how the tablets make your blood feel so cold that all you want to do is hide under a warm duvet.

How my brain has been damaged in a way that makes it difficult to remember why I'm going into town after I've taken two steps out of the front door of Warrillow Towers. The frustration of getting home from town and remembering that you forgot what you went in for AGAIN.

How I really must remember to write down the day's activities on the whiteboard in the kitchen or I WILL forget something important. (Such as the dental appointment 15 minutes ago which writing this blog post has just brought to mind...)

 How coping with a front-door lock that's playing up slightly can leave me temporarily imprisoned in Warrillow Towers. How the crowds and noise on market day in Tamworth really are too much for me to cope with at the moment.

How my new-found ability to forget or lose things can mean I think I've lost my wallet and can spend a nervous hour re-tracing my steps from the previous evening, only for Mrs W to then find it down the back of the lounge sofa.

How the thought of losing my wallet can send me into agonies of panic over all the hassle that would entail.

How explaining all this to non-strokies who, perfectly understandably, don't have a clue can sometimes make you want to cry with frustration.

I expressed all this frustration yesterday on a forum for stroke-survivors. Someone replied that I have to start saying that all of this is a problem "at the moment". Of course, they are right. But it doesn't make it any easier at the moment.