An Athlone woman who had to learn to walk and talk again following a devastating stroke, has graduated from university.
Carrie Minagh, 42, was shopping when she experienced a piercing pain in her head.
“I thought I was dying. All I could think of was all of these people around me, yet there was no-one to help me,” Carrie recalled.
When she returned home, her mother Mercedes realised she was exhibiting signs of stroke and rushed her to hospital, where she was diagnosed with a potentially fatal bleed on the brain.
“I am very lucky that I was with my mother and that she recognised two of the F.A.S.T. signs of stroke. If I was alone and in my own home, it could have been a very different outcome,” Carrie, speaking ahead of World Stroke Day on October 29, added.
The stroke survivor took her first steps to recovery after she was transferred from Dublin’s Beaumont Hospital, where she underwent surgery, to Portiuncula University Hospital in Ballinasloe.
“I learned how to walk after seven-and-a-half weeks in hospital and the nurse moved my arm after nine weeks. The staff at Portiuncula were key in helping me to get back on my feet. The physiotherapist used to wheel me down and then let me walk back up to my ward.
“Every evening when my parents came to visit, I would spend time walking up and down the corridors, practising as much as I could. I always told myself, ‘today is a new day and things are going to get better’.
“You can wallow in self-pity, or you can get up and take what has been dealt to you,” Carrie, who recently graduated with a degree in Community Services and Youth Work from Maynooth University in Kildare, said.
Carrie, who had her stroke in 2014, now offers peer-to-peer support in the Irish Heart Foundation’s Life After Stroke Group.
“The after-effects of a stroke vary from person to person and recovery can be very different.
“The Irish Heart Foundation can offer practical and emotional support post-stroke to help you live well and encourage you to work towards doing the things you enjoyed before,” Helen Gaynor, Head of Community Services with the charity, stated.
She said the charity’s Stroke Connect Service provides support to survivors via a weekly phone service, while the Young Stroke Survivors’ Network runs a WhatsApp group and online and in-person exercise classes.
Several short-term courses are also available to help survivors overcome fatigue and prepare to return to work.
The Foundation is also hosting a series of online stroke talks next week (Oct23-Oct27 ) and topics include music therapy, healthy eating and entitlements.
A free mindfulness morning retreat on October 27 is also available. To register for the talks, visit irishheart.ie
