Kristy: Today’s story is something that’s really important to me and it’s affected
someone in my family along with 45,000 other Kiwis.
V/O: On average 17 New Zealanders will have a stroke today and six of them will die.
V/O: Mary Brown was a badminton player and an Irish dancing teacher. At 51 she was starting
to travel and then she had a massive stroke.
V/O: David Herkt’s memory was like a computer with a super hard drive – now it’s an
effort to retain information.
V/O: Mike Brown was in a high-powered meeting when a blood vessel in his brain burst, it
was a stroke.
V/O: Leigh Wakefield was a detective and barely 40, she was confident and self-assured. Every
year nearly 6 ? thousand New Zealanders will have a stroke – they’re devastating, depending
on the part of the brain affected they’ll cause physical, emotional and intellectual
changes long term or short term disability. Research into stroke is rapidly advancing
with scientists looking for both causes and cures but what they already know is that we
could prevent 85% of strokes.
Professor Alan Barber: They have started calling these brain attacks and that’s to emphasise
the importance that this is a serious thing, most people don’t know what a stroke is,
as I say only about a third of people can name symptoms of a stroke and it’s the usual
suspects – high blood pressure, not enough exercise, high cholestrol, diabetes, smoking.
Kristy: Ten years ago my dad had his stroke, I see how it affects him physically and emotionally
but I still don’t really know what it means to have a stroke.
V/O: Auckland University has a brain bank with tissue from more than 400 brains; neuroscientists
are gradually uncovering the secrets of the brain. The stroke is caused by one of two
things – a bleed within the brain or a blood clot. The brains stored here give us a clear
idea of what can happen. Neuroscientist Alan Barber is ranked one of the world’s experts
on stroke.
Kristy: Here was have some stroke-affected brains and this is a normal looking brain?
Professor Alan Barber: That was a normal brain.
V/O: He’s researching ways to limit the impact of the stroke but he’s equally passionate
about educating others of the risks.
Professor Alan Barber: The brain needs to get blood, to get blood from the heart up
to the brain you’ve got arteries and you’ve got two main arteries here and here and a
couple that come up the back – this is one of the ones that comes up the back, it’s
pretty difficult to see… then that comes up here and you can see little ones branching
off, now each time an artery branches into two they get smaller.
V/O: Those tiny arteries can stop receiving blood if flat blocks the line and that’s
why you need to keep your cholesterol low.
Professor Alan Barber: The part of the brain that’s affected by that loss of blood flow
stops working and it stops working within a couple of minutes and that part of the brain
will die so that’s that sort of stroke – that’s about 85% of strokes.
V/O: That’s what happened to Mary Brown 11 years ago. One of the cruelest aspects
of stroke is that it can deprive many of speech, it’s called Aphasia.
Kristy: You’ve found your own way to communicate without words with lots of photos.
Mary: Yes sometimes.
Kristy: So you write things down for people?
Mary: No because…nothing…and speak and sometimes laugh laugh laugh because sick and
tired…
V/O: Mary’s stroke was massive, she has a small collection of words but she never
quite knows on any one day what she’ll be organise into speech, that’s just part of
the random nature of stroke.
V/O: It’s amazing to me that Mary can sing yet she can’t speak but doctors can explain
why.
Professor Alan Barber: The music part of the brain is in a slightly different area so that’s
why she can express herself through song but she can’t necessarily express herself through
spoken English. It’s the same as writing, some people when they have an Aphasia but
some people can still express themselves by writing.
Kristy: What were you doing when you had your stroke? You were sitting at a table playing
poker.
Mary: Yes and just bang.
Kristy: What’s the next thing you remember? Was it waking up in hospital?
Mary: Yes and every time pills and nothing and slowly…nothing
Kristy: So slowly became independent and live here?
Mary: Yes and nothing, me and me and me
Mary singing
V/O: Much of Mary’s former life is gone but she’s had the courage since her stroke
to put herself out there and build a new life – because she can sing she’s joined a
choir. Mary knows she was lucky to survive her stroke, one third are fatal.
V/O: Soon after her stroke Mary managed to return home and live independently. When she
first had her stroke her right side was completely paralysed, she couldn’t so much as roll
over and she had no speech. Her right arm is still paralysed but Mary’s learnt ways
to manage.
Mary: Oh hello, how are you?
V/O: Mary’s brother and sister call by every week; she’s also supported by volunteers
from the Stroke Foundation.
Margaret: I was wondering if your nails needed doing because I brought the clippers. Oh they’re
not too bad, I’ll do them on the weekend.
Mary: OK
Margaret: I’ll make a cup of tea.
Terry: I’ve got some papers for you to sign
Mary: Alright.
Terry: I come and see her every week and we talk about her bills and the money, she’s
a sister first and foremost and it’s just normal – she’s a sister who has had a
stroke but she’s got the same character and personality so it’s just being part
of a family.
Margaret: Actually I see more of Mary now than I did before because before she was busy
and I was busy and now that Mary is in need of more help we need to be around for her.
V/O: Every day tasks are much more of an effort than they used to be yet Mary accepts where
life’s at.
Kristy: How do you cope with life’s frustrations?
Mary: Well sometimes…OK so what, so what, I’m going to be fine…I’m going to laugh
and laugh and laugh.
Kristy: Our brains are a mysterious and complex filing system; memory is kind of like a book
and after a stroke sometimes the chapters are missing.
David: I used to pride myself on having a fairly honed computer for a brain, I was always
an appalling notetaker and very seldom took notes, it was just all in here (brain). I’d
been a journalist so I’d written for magazines and websites so I was an information person,
quickly absorb, process and then spit it out.
V/o David was 53 years old when he had his stroke, he knew nothing about the symptoms.
At first he ignored the signs that something was wrong.
David I couldn’t sit upright, like I got on the bed but my centre of balance I couldn’t
find and what I was doing was I’d try to sit up and I’d fall over and then I’d
try again and fall over, I don’t know how long I was doing that for, it was quite some
time and I was doing all these weird things like concentrating on gravity and my centre
of balance and trying to actually get my centre of balance right while totally ignoring the
fact this really weird things is happening to me.
V/O: What is happening is that a blood vessel is actually bursting in your brain and it’s
letting blood out. What happened was I sort of got the first inkling of “this headache
is more severe than I thought, there’s something really going on here” – all of a sudden
what appears to just be a minor headache or a minor hangover just went up to stadium volume,
it was just like unbelievable. It was really really painful then there was a period of
a week in intensive care where you are cradled in medical science really, it’s all warm
fuzzy you are actually rocked on medical technology. You don’t know how fast the human body will
recover so you’re stuck there in this place that’s not like it used to be but you don’t
know that you’re ever going to recover from it and it can be a very dark and unpleasant
place. Then what happens is the human body does it’s marvellous things – you actually
start this process of recovering and things do start coming back and bit by bit you regain
bits and pieces and you re-learn how to use them. One of the things I found recently is
a notebook that I kept when (well tried to keep), I had pride in myself for the hand
writing so it’s quite nice that I can look at this person who can’t really write and
you can’t read quite a bit of it and you go from that to my nice sort of neat hand
writing again so you can see the progress there but I couldn’t read, my eyes would
move over a sentence and I’d start it but by the time I got to the end I had no idea
what was happening. The words in your mouth sometimes feel like rocks that won’t go
out so you’re busy trying to push them out from the inside and they just aren’t coming
or they aren’t going or they’re very hard to push. Your tongue moves differently and
your mouth moves weirdly that you can’t control and it can be a very long way between
the inside of you that’s doing the thoughts and the outside of you that’s actually speaking
them.
V/O: David’s involved in the new research project and it’s helping him rebuild his
mind. Slowly he can feel his memory being restored.
David: I think I am quite lucky to have come out of it with what I came out of it, my brain
still processes at a million miles an hour and it’s increasingly got better and I can
talk and I can move and I can control my life in lots of ways so yeah I feel I’m very
lucky to have come out of my stroke the way I’ve come out of it.