HEALTH: Surviving and thriving after stroke

STROKE survivor Delia Costello didn’t speak to The Mayo News simply to talk about herself, but to raise awareness and to support the work of Croí.

Today being National Stroke Day (October 29), this Ballinrobe woman feels ‘very blessed’ to be where she is eight years after being left unable to walk, read, write and, at one point, talk.

That she couldn’t speak is particularly hard to grasp after spending 90 minutes in her company, where the chat flows as freely as the River Robe.

“I’ve had a long road but I’m still here, and I’m very grateful to be here,” Delia says, adding that it’s the ‘the people coming behind me’ for whom she really fears. Why? Because while our people can access stroke services in Mayo ‘on paper’, it is not always so in practice.

_{FEELING BLESSED Delia Costello encourages other stroke survivors in Mayo to seek out the services provided by west-of-Ireland heart charity Croí, which can help fill the gap in government-provided stroke services in the county}

Delia explains with an anecdote from her time in Merlin Park Hospital in Galway.

“The social worker there, she was a Mayo girl, was handing out books, such as the book that I have in my hand here now,” she says, holding up the 67-page ‘My Stroke Journey’, a de facto user’s manual for stroke victims.

“It has all the services that’s in your area in it. So people, once they went home, they’d only have to look up this book and they’d have a phone number for whatever they needed. All the people in the ward were getting one of the books, and I didn’t get any.

“I knew the girl and I asked her ‘Could I have a book?’. She said ‘It’d be no use to you, Delia. These services are all for Galway’.”

Upside down

Delia was reared in the heart of Ballinrobe, where she and her husband, Padraic, had six children together.

Apart from having Type 2 diabetes and an under-active thyroid, Delia was fit, healthy and health-conscious, particularly after losing two ‘very young’ sisters to heart disease, after which she diligently followed the heart-friendly Mediterranean diet.

At 60, her world was turned upside down when she suffered four strokes in a short space of time. Her case was so rare that she consented to have it included in the British Medical Journal.

Her diagnosis was RCVS: reversible cerebral vasoconstriction syndrome.

“The word I held onto there was ‘reversible’,” Delia tells The Mayo News. “When I asked them in Dublin [Beaumount Hospital], I said ‘Well if it’s reversible does that mean if I keep working at it, that I get it [my full health] back?’. They said, ‘We don’t think that you’ll get anything back’.”

Boy did she prove the boffins wrong.

Delia’s lengthy road to recovery would not have been possible without the support of her husband, Padraic, and her children Sinéad, Catriona, Siobhán, Padraic Jnr and Conor.

At one point in the early days of her recovery, both she and her Padraic Snr were in Mayo University Hospital together while he suffered with cancer.

“He was upstairs and I was downstairs. He would come down for our last cup of tea at night time. Later on, when I was getting a bit better they’d bring me up in the wheelchair up to him in the oncology ward,” she recalls.

Padraic, a local GAA legend, has since recovered and is a rock of support for Delia, whose stroke forced them both into retirement.

Loving support

When Delia returned home wheelchair-bound after five months in hospital, their living room had been converted into a gym. A stair lift and hand-railings followed shortly afterwards, further reminders that life wouldn’t be the same again for a long time.

Explaining her children’s reaction, she says they would protest against any notion that she wouldn’t recover. “They’d say, ‘That’s not Mam. She’s active. This is not her’,” says Delia. “The woman that the doctor was portraying to them wasn’t the woman that they knew… So I’m very lucky to have had my family.”

Her son Conor, retrained as a dog groomer and now runs a thriving business from a shed at the back of the house while caring for his mother.

Physiotherapy was available but quite limited in the public system, so her family paid for private physiotherapy and rehabilitation. Delia believes that without this, she wouldn’t be where she is today.

Fast forward eight years, and Delia has gone from not being able to walk to getting around with a cane and using the toilet independently.

The front room where The Mayo News enjoyed tea, biscuits and a chat last Thursday is a sitting room again – there’s not a dumbbell in sight.

Thriving survivor

Quite aptly, Delia considers herself a stroke ‘survivor/thriver’.

“Thanks be to God I’m here today. It takes an awful lot of effort, but it’s worth it. I’m basically fighting to get my life back,” she says.

Throughout her recovery, Delia has used the services of Croí, the leading heart-disease charity in the west of Ireland.

Situated in Galway city, the Croí Heart and Stroke Centre is a first-of-its-kind facility dedicated exclusively to the prevention of, and recovery from, cardiovascular disease.

“For me, what I would love to see is that Mayo would have the same [public] services as Galway. I feel we deserve it. We are entitled to it; we have paid our taxes,” says Delia.

That sentiment goes particularly for those stroke victims without five loving adult children and a conscientious, cool-as-a-breeze husband to support them.

“The Lotto wouldn’t win what I have,” says Delia of her family. “They are, each and every one of them, they are just so good’.”

Mayo Support Group

Part of Croí’s work involves offering support groups for people living with stroke, as well as their friends, families and carers. The charity hosts a monthly stroke support group, every last Thursday of the month, in Castlebar.

Croí Community Stroke Support Specialist Rebecca Dorsett describes the group as ‘an opportunity for the Mayo stroke community to link in with one another in a safe space, to share their lived experiences, seek advice from each other and learn how to live well after stroke’.

Each month, the Croí organisers aim to have a different facilitator who will focus on a relatable topic for life after stroke – for example, a Croí dietician could talk to the group about how to read food labels or adopt a healthier diet. Croí also has nurse specialists who deliver talks on understanding personal medical information, as well as on health risk factors and how to manage them best. They also bring in external speakers to help with community reintegration post stroke. These include Mayo regional therapists, members of An Garda Síochána, people from Mayo Sports Partnership and many more.

“Our support group takes pride in saying we have built a strong community of stroke survivors, family, friends and carers, to ensure that no-oner ever feels alone,” Rebecca explains.

“Whilst our group understands how scary and unsettling it can be trying to rebuild aspects of life post-stroke, one thing that made those steps less daunting was attending the support group each month. We welcome all ages at our support group, as we understand that stroke can affect us at any age.”

If you or anyone you know needs support and a sense of community after a stroke, consider contacting Croí’s Mayo Support Group. For more information about the support group or other stroke-related services at Croí, please contact healthteam@croi.ie, call 091 544310 or visit the Croí website.