In 2006 I had a stroke which ended up with aphasia.

Now that I have almost recovered, I want to share my experience wiht fellow aphasia patients, their caregivers and the medical community.

My blog is about day by day account of what happened with me.

And various treatments of Aphasia, Apraxia, Dysarthria that went well.

Aphasia has changed my life.

I find it difficult speaking to strangers. It has had a big affect on my social life. Where I was confident before, now I feel held back. I feel it does restrict my socialising with strangers. I find it very frustrating having difficulty reading and writing, something I just took for granted before. My main difficulty is with small words, but I sometimes have problems with others. However I am making progress all the time. I find now I cannot think of a word when trying to compile a letter, but when I am given the first two letters it comes back to me. It is just difficult to recall it first of all.

I now cannot pursue my career in travel and tourism and need to find something else to do. My previous jobs required a high level of verbal communication skills and I could just not do that now.

Aphasia has affected my confidence, because I was very outgoing before and took this for granted. The plus has been that I have had to re-evaluate my life and look to a new career. I am now taking City & Guilds Photography in September at college. I also feel I would very much like to do counselling and have decided to take Listening Skills as a start in November this year at college. I think the accident has made me think very differently about life and making the most of it.