This is the book that the hospital made up for Neil.
It just basically told who he was, and that he'd had a stroke
and telling anyone that needed to know that he was dysphasic
and that he'd speech problems and where his brain was actually damaged,
and a bit about his background, his family and who the family members were.
And then they had, you had bits for communicating – a thumbs up for yes and down for no,
and different faces so that he could say whether he was happy or not.
And maybe some of the things he wanted, you know, obviously things like the toilet
and whether he needed his glasses or whether he wanted his writing pad to try and communicate.
And days of the week and numbers
Neil actually remembered his numbers quite well, although he couldn't read properly
and he couldn't write sentences or anything. He could draw.
I never was very quick as Isabel will agree
I never was very quick at walking or moving around, but I'm slower now
Both in mind and in movement.
I help her with shopping although she's now much better than she was,
and she's getting the hang of the bathing now,
although she still likes to have someone beside her just in case anything should happen.
I am supposed to go up and down these stairs once a day to keep my leg working
and keep the blood flowing and what have you, but I actually want to get upstairs.
It's motivation as much as anything. It is hard work.
There's 17 steps, I know that, I've counted them so many times.
When I had my stroke, we had to have this handrail replaced, and also a second one put in.
Of course I can only go up staircases that have got a handrail on the right hand side.
There isn't one on the left, so I've got to come down backwards as well.
Initially I would take the steps one at a time like this
Only five to go
Now I can move with just one hand,
and sometimes I can take both hands off and do it.
And this is the room I want to get into. It's so much determination and motivation to get up those stairs.
This is my pride and joy. This is my model railway room.
[Sound Effects & Music]
You watching your time, Isabel?
Yes, dear.
If you're too dependent, you keep on depending on people and eventually you give in,
because you find that you're not able to do it yourself, and you depend on other folk to do it
whereas if you make the attempt, you get the satisfaction of knowing you have tried.
Initially I wasn't able to put cups away or get them down from cupboards like I can now.
The problem was that initially when I put it up after washing it, I couldn't release it.
so I had to pull it, but now as you can see, I can put it down,
I can lift it up and put it away and close the cupboard door.
[Sound Effects & Music]
I'd gone to the Western General. One of the exercises I had to do was to sit behind
a desk and gradually thread balls onto a piece of string which I thought was a waste of time,
having to keep my elbow on the table. But obviously
I realise now they were all designed to help very small movements.
One of the things my counsellor said was the best thing to do is to try and use your right hand as often as possible,
and one of the targets you want to aim at is being able to write your name or write a cheque
because when I first had my stroke, my wife had to have power of attorney for me.
It's slow, but if I take my time, it's legible.
[Sound Effects & Music]
Neil had his stroke on the left side of his brain which affected the right side of his body
and he's naturally right handed, so he had to learn to use his left hand again.
But quite quickly he started drawing with it to try, because he couldn't speak, to try and tell us what he wanted to say,
and that's basically how the art group thing came about.
Now he's started painting. I think this was the first attempt, wasn't it?
Uh huh.
You had at painting.
Yes
He likes countryside. He likes being out and about don't you, and this was the second one, was it?
Uh huh.
This was his latest one. And as you can see, he's getting brighter and
his colours are getting better aren't they? Your mixing of colours is getting better.
And of course, social services locally have supplied me with a lot of equipment
everything from a trolley to aids for the kitchen,
to the lifting seat for the bath, to the raised seat for the toilet
all sorts of things really.
The biggest adaptations that have had to be made to the house, as you might imagine, are in the bathroom area.
If you come into the bathroom here. I've been supplied with a raised toilet seat for the toilet.
That gives me a six inch raise, and then a handrail to help me stand up again.
The biggest problem is I can't get in and out of the bath unaided so what we've got is
it's called a manga booster seat. You fill the bath with water in the normal way, pump the seat up and sit on it and then when you're ready to go into the water,
you release the pressure and down you go. And then to come up again, you turn on the compressor and it pumps the bellows up
until you're sitting on the edge of the bath, and from there I can stand up.
And that enables me to have a bath every day, although we do have a care assistant that visits the house every morning for now to help me with that.
We do try to sit at a proper table to have meals. We think it's good for the girls, not to mention me.
What? You don't want that bit? Just put it on the side of your plate then.
Here's something else that social services have provided. In addition to steps the other thing I have trouble with is normal height chairs,
so the plan is in every room we have a chair on raised legs. So this one here that I'm sitting on, it has metal extensions
In the lounge, I have an ordinary armchair which is on big plastic blocks, but in each case it raises the chair by about six inches which is what I need.