So...my husband had a stroke

Hello,

as the title explains my husband had a stroke. It's weird, because he had it over 6 years ago (Feb 11) and you would think by now things would have calmed down, settled a bit, but it seems to be going the opposite way.

I'm not sure how can I cope with the constant change in him now.

He suffered two separate strokes. One we were explained by his consultant that was down to a malformed vein in his head (most likely been born with it), so narrow it couldn't let a blood clot pass And the other one caused by the hospital by giving him way to higher dosage of blood thinners to prevent any further cloths.

The second one was so severe he had to learn how to walk again basically.

He was discharged without any further help. I assume because he was mobile and verbal they decided no further help was needed or i don't know.

He wasn't sent off to any specialists or even the GP. He wasn't even told at the time not to claim JSA, but ESA. We ended up finding out by chance when one of his advisers in the job center told him about it.

At some point couple of years ago he did go to the GP and she was observant enough to notice something was wrong and he finally started receiving some help.

He is on antidepressants for anxiety and depression, which is apparently common in stroke victims. He has issues with his memory and sometimes struggles to walk due to having a car crash in the past and because of this his other knee is incredibly weak. He's also on permanent painkillers for that knee, because he's developed arthritis there and pain is getting worse. The orthopedics surgeon told him it will only get worse from here so might aswell have the painkillers.

His moods constantly change, he goes from I love you to I want to kill you in a matter of hours.

It's mentally and physically draining me. I try to make allowances for him and try to understand, but I can't help but feel this is not what we had planned.

Does anyone maybe have an advice? Been in a similar situation?

[randomphantoms]

Hi and welcome to the forum.

First 6 years is an awfully long time to have been dealing with this alone.

Please ring the headway helpline tomorrow and have a chat with them.

Download the leaflets. They have lots of useful advice on all sorts of things.

Pester anyone and everyone to get physio or any help you can.

Find out if there is a headway group near you.

Hope you start to feel less lonely now that you have found us.

[cat3]

Hello Lonely and welcome. I'm taking the liberty of shortening your username to 'Nel' in the hope that, after being around for a while, you'll start to feel less alone.

There are carers here who will readily identify with your predicament and, though no one can make your issues disappear, there are those who can fully empathise with your day to day challenges and with whom you can exchange insight and coping strategies.

It's a forum for both carers and survivors, so we can share opinions and observations from both aspects. I'm 5&1/2years on from a brain haemorrhage and have similar symptoms to your husband. I also have the greatest of respect for those, like yourself, who travel the same path, but with all the added responsibility of life's other commitments.

I just wanted to welcome you, and to echo randomphantom's advice to contact the Headway helpline for extra support. The tel.no. is 0808 800 2244 (office hours - free calls).

Hope to see you again tomorrow............ Cat x

[mrslovely]

My husband has had more or less same experience. He had a massive bleed to the brain (stroke) December 2011. He has speech and language problems,can't read or write, long and short term memory problems still walks with limp and tires very quickly, has lost half his sight vision in both eyes and is now registered as partially sighted. He suffers with mood swings and gets depressed. When he was in hospital they made me get my sons

to the hospital twice as the said he wouldn't survive the night. He was on a ventilator for 10 days and in hospital for 3months He is still with us. Apart from 6weeks follow up at home from nurse and physio he has received no treatment or help. The only follow up we have is seeing the doctor every six months for blood pressure test and prescription. We did have one contact point through Tapestry but now the borough has stopped the Grant to the charity and we have no one person in the borough to go to for advice.

I sympathise with you as I'm experiencing the same things. I know its very frustrating for my husband but it is for me as well. People don't seem to realise the effect it has on partners.

We just have to carry on and keep smiling.

[sca2013]

Here is a bit of an off the wall thing you may find of help. I found it while looking for help with sleep. This is a registered medical device in Japan and the reason I mention it here is that this is also used for recovery for those who have had a stroke. I have no financial connection to this at all. Hope it may be a resource for you. liptrainer.com/main/stroke.htm

[steve55]

my wife with me. mine was feb 2012 similar scenario but only one stroke, discharged after 5 days. meds for aggession, adhd, epilepsy, non of which i had before my stroke.

my advice would be to find out when your local monthly headway group meet and go along.

[Kavib]

I had a SAH 2 years ago and was very lucky with it. I also experience change in personality, mood swings, memory loss , high anxiety but by realising these issues I have learnt tools and ways to adapt myself when it starts to happen. This has only been helped after seeing a neuropsychologist which was referred to me through the hospital ( or your gp) it was also difficult for my partner to understand as he would say I'm like another person now. They also talked to my husband and children to explain to them. Hope you can ask your husband to do the same and it will surely help him and your relationship together. X

[Hidden]

Thank you everyone for your advice!

It is hard on both victims and carers indeed. I've noticed a lot of my husband's family and friends have no understanding at all to what happened and treat him as if it's something he can just easily recover from. I suppose, because it's not something easily spotted as a broken leg.

Instead they have abandoned him and don't even bother checking in to see how he is. My family is quite far away and I don't have any friends here (I had to move here so we can be together) so we don't really have anyone to see or do anything really. Which I think is only making it worse for him. He says he doesn't want to see anybody anyway, but I think that's more of him trying not to show he's hurt. He seems to hide his feelings a lot now, where before he would happily express his emotions.

I was diagnosed with "situational depression" and I am now seeing a therapist to try and sort myself out. I wish he would do the same so he could talk to someone. Sadly he had a bad experience with a therapist that the GP referred him to after first started seeing her and he is now convinced that the whole thing is pointless. Just to explain he said that the guy compared my husband's stroke to that one time he broke his ankle. My husband immediately explained how silly such a statement is and the guy apologised, but it was enough for him to give up completely on the whole thing.

To be honest it's a bit weird to me he says this, because on good days, when he feels sort of OK he does try to talk to me. We usually have a good chat, him trying to explain to me what it's like and so on and I can say we both feel so much better after those little sessions. But those are too few and far apart. Mostly down to both, him rarely feeling OK to talk and us having free time for ourselves with no screaming toddler around.

I'm not sure how I can get him involved to do anything. Even If I catch him on a good day and talk to him, we agree on something, the next day or even in some cases later that day he will revert back to the annoyed, fed up with everything, saying wanting to kill himself new self and everything goes out of the window. He's been on antidepressants for over 2 years and although he's not as bad as he used to be before them, he is nowhere even near OK. How long do those things need to take effect?

[steve55 in reply to Hidden]

lonely182 your husband needed to speak to a psychiatrist, i will say this once again, you also need to find out where your nearest monthly headways group meet, it will help your husband, because he will be talking to people who really understand what hes going through, because thyve got a bi, something you or your family will never understand.

it will do you good to meeting other people who have to put up with us and discuss with them their coping strategies.

[Sean1964]

I'm the Husband she is referring to

She paints as if she understands whilst everyone else does not

Truth is it is her that never understood

Ive spent 7 years being told how terrible I am

my depression was caused by her ironically

She never tried to talk anything out thats a lie

her solution was to leave me cos she chatted up some guy on the internet