IT manager Paul Howard was living a pretty sedentary and unhealthy lifestyle at 42. But the thought of having a stroke never crossed his mind.
“Probably in the back of my head I thought it was possible. But it was not the sort of thing I thought about,” he tells Stroke Rehab Times.
“I knew I was unhealthy. I used to drink and smoke too much and didn’t exercise enough.
“But when I went into casualty, I thought worst case scenario was that it could be some sort of heart condition.”
Paul had been feeling ill over the preceding five or six months. He was continuously lethargic and out of breath, devoid of energy yet unable to sleep.
“I had massively high blood pressure, which was causing all my organs to fail. I had congestive heart failure, kidney failure, water on the lungs, water on the brain.
“I finally went into casualty in January 2015 because I was feeling pretty terrible.”
Paul spend three-and-a-half weeks in hospital, suffering multiple strokes over the first fortnight. He has no memory of his time there, bar some fractured hallucinations and blurry encounters with doctors.
“I spoke to one neurologist who gave me competency tests which I failed miserably. I think that’s the only time I spoke to a neurologist.
“I had one outpatient appointment about six months later, where they just checked me over for five minutes and looked in my eyes, and that was it. That’s the last I spoke to them.”
Paul lost 95 per cent of his eyesight during episode, though doctors can’t say for certain how much of that was physical damage to the eye and how much was neurological damage from the stroke itself.
Nonetheless, he remains hugely grateful to be ’99 per cent’ the person he was before.
Understandably, the experience pushed Paul to rethink his lifestyle and take on some healthy habits.
“Before Covid, I was walking five to 10 kilometres a day throughout the week plus weekends, if I was out and about doing things. But that was mainly just trying to make myself more active which obviously helps with the blood pressure.
“I stopped habits that weren’t conducive to a healthy body. So I just cut my drinking down, stopped eating so much rubbish and exercised more.”
After having isolated for close to two years, Paul jumped at the chance to get back out there and take on the Stroke Association’s Stride for Stroke challenge.
He aims to walk 1.3 million steps over the next 130 days – that’s 10,000 per day.
“Now things are calming down a little bit and I’ve had the three vaccines, I’ve decided it’s time to start getting back to doing a generous amount of walking every day.
“It’s been interesting trying to fit in a good hour or so of solid, continuous walking each day. It’s nice to get out the house and reacquaint myself with exercise again.”
As for what advice Paul would give to young people living the lifestyle he was?
“Don’t get old and don’t be unfit! (Laughs).
“Don’t be sedentary. Get out there and do some kind of exercise. It doesn’t have to be a lot. Just do something so you’re not just sitting around all the time.”
You can support Paul’s 1.3 million steps Stride for Stroke via his JustGiving page.
