Life//Adventures

Since my stroke I have been lucky enough to meet some truly incredible people who have not only become friends but who have helped me through my recovery. Ive wrote about the Scott family before, I began talking to Joanie Scott on facebook through a charity called Different Strokes, I soon also began talking to her daughter Sarah. Both have had strokes caused by a PFO like mine. The Stroke Association then gave us all tickets to the Queens Diamond Jubilee concert where we got to meet for the first time and we’ve been in touch ever since. Sarah, for those who don’t already know, had her stroke when she was 18 and now has aphasia which means she has difficulty communicating. You can find out more about aphasia here 

Sarah was one of the 3 people on the first episode of Channel 4’s series 2 of The Undateables. She was fantastic and you can watch it online by following this link 

Lots of people have asked me what I think of the programme title, as some of you will probably have seen on my facebook it is something I could talk about forever and i’m VERY opinionated about. So here goes…

The title ‘The Undateables’ is of course, controversial. It is sensationalised to raise eyebrows, to shock and to get people talking about it. I do not doubt that Betty TV had a full understanding of the heads they would turn and the criticism it would receive for seemingly calling disabled people ‘undateable’. They perhaps also, unlike many people who take to twitter and facebook to call Channel 4 a ‘disgrace’, are probably very educated in the fact that our soceity does view people with disabilities as ‘undateable’ wether we like it or not. In 2008 an Observer poll found that 70% of people would not consider having sex with a ‘physically disabled person’ If that doesnt already scream ‘undateable’ at you then consider this next fact: a mere 4% of people said that they had previously slept with someone with a disability.

Knowing these facts alone makes me believe there is a need for a programme like the undateables and if people could look past the name they would see a programme that is caring, considerate and confidence boosting to those who take part. If viewers watch with a narrow mind of course the purpose of the programme seems to change, people make jokes and tweet comments like ‘i still would’ but with an open mind it shows that dating with a disability is just as sweet, exciting, awkward, heart-warming or heart-breaking as dating without one. Like with any dates there are awkward silences to fill, the possibility of being stood up and the thrill of getting carried away with infatuation, wether the participants find love or not I can see from following on Twitter (@SarahBScotty @Hadyn_Clark @ChasingShadowsUK & @Sam_Culpeck that their lives have changed for the better since the show, more confident, happy and with Sarah it has even helped with her recovery. 

I really commend Betty TV and Channel 4 for being brave enough to produce a programme on a seemingly taboo subject and for doing it with such a sensitivity that the ‘undateables’ do not feel like the pitiable victims of sensationalised media that many people who have never seen the show assume that they are. There is no perfect way to represent disabilities on television (I spent my final academic year trying to figure that out for my dissertation) but I for one, don’t think The Undateables is a bad way to go…

This is Sarah’s first video diary of her recovery, I think it was filmed about a year after her stroke which left her with aphasia. (see previous blog) I didn’t know her back then but her speech now is just so different it is incredible (see her latest update). 

Something I forgot to mention in my previous post is that strangely enough Sarah was on BBC Breakfast the morning after my stroke and my mum can remember my Grandad coming to the hospital and saying there was a young girl on breakfast TV that had also had a stroke. I still find it crazy that it turned out to be Sarah and I can now call her and her family friends. 

Imagine knowing what you want to say and being physically unable to form the words or trying to speak and not being able to remember the words that you want to say, what something is called or where you want to go. More than this you can’t read, write, count money or tell the time. How would you communicate? This is what can happen if a stroke damages the part of your brain that controls your speech.  This part of my brain wasn’t damaged but since my stroke I have made some great friends who were affected in this way and I think it’s about time I posted properly about it.

On my way home for my dads birthday this week I stopped off in Stevenage to go for lunch with Joanie, Sarah and Coralie Scott and Sarah’s personal assitant. After speaking to Joanie and Sarah online for a while the stroke association arranged for us to meet at Buckingham Palace for the Queens Diamond Jubilee picnic and concert. Sarah had a stroke aged 18 when she was reading out loud at sixth form and as she was reading she lost her ability to speak and felt pins and needles in her right arm before it fell to her side. The right side of her face dropped and her classmates recognised the symptoms from the act FAST campaign and called an ambulance, different to my experience where I was walking alone and had no pins and needles or realisation that I was having a stroke. Although the after affects of our strokes are very different, we both had Ischemic strokes caused by blood clots and now have very similar attitudes towards what has happened to us, both with positive attitudes and doing as much as we can to recover and get on with our lifes.

I wanted to write a little about Sarah because when we were at lunch we spoke about the lack of awareness around aphasia and whilst i’m not sure how many people this post will reach, every single person who becomes aware of it is a step forward and I think it’s important to talk about every aspect of stroke, not just the parts that affect me. Sarah’s mum Joanie also had a stroke last year and all three of us have PFO’s (hole in the heart) although Sarah and Joanie have had theirs closed I am still waiting for a decision on what to do with mine, the whole family are ridiculously lovely and just incredible and it has helped me a lot to be in contact with them. Sarah’s speech seems to be continually improving and there seemed to be a huge difference between monday and the time we partied with the Queen. They keep video updates on youtube of Sarah’s recovery which you can find here http://www.youtube.com/user/SymphUK/videos and I’m going to post her first video which will hopefully encourage you to watch the rest. 

Buckingham Palace Picnic & Concert, Diamond Jubilee