Speech and Language Therapy for Adults

0:01 hello hello so Sarah do you want to tell

0:10 us a little bit about you my name is

0:14 Sarah and I'm 20 20 want to come on your

0:27 fingers 28 yeah 28 I had a stroke at

0:40 school when I was 18 when I was in my

0:46 English class I was supposed to be speaking a line and so I realized

0:57 straight well I didn't actually realize but all of my friends and my teacher realized because I couldn't talk at all

1:06 I didn't realize that I had a strike I was thinking I was just tired because it

1:14 was um the first part of the day but I

1:22 went to the hospital straightaway and were you conscious I was kind of out of

1:32 consciousness or at the time and I can't really remember what happened when I was in the hospital but you couldn't swallow

1:41 you couldn't walk and you had weakness down one side and what was your speech

1:50 like after your stroke um so I couldn't say anything my parents bought me a

2:01 magazine and I realized straight away that I can read because it was all of

2:09 the words but just goggle D Guk I could just just see the pictures

2:17 because I couldn't say anything I couldn't say oh I can't read but also

2:25 that all of the doctors were talking to

2:34 me saying could you sit down or stand up or raise your by today and I just

2:43 couldn't understand what they were talking about I wanted to help but I

2:51 just said everything really was not working so it was a severe stroke and you're in hospital for five months

2:59 hospital and we have a lot of people now think you're better and how do you feel about that when people say you're better

3:08 well if you've seen this video you've seen that I as things that I can't do or

3:15 if it's it's difficult but your speech is very good isn't it so I my speech was really bad order had

3:26 my stroke what I said I couldn't say anything and then I could say yes and no

3:34 but all of the time I wanted to say yes but I said no so it was very confusing

3:42 for me but also all of the people like my family and friends that was hard and

3:50 it was quite a long journey with lots of speech therapy and and we did these videos the first one was nine months

3:57 after your stroke was met yeah the first video was really hard couldn't really

4:06 say much and even though I said you know numbers is still difficult it was so

4:12 much worse at the start and my speech is actually I think they're the best thing

4:20 that I've changed a lot are to my stroke and because I've been working me

4:26 hard because I did speech therapy but you know I can't read and write

4:35 very well I have apps in my phone and my

4:41 computer so if I want to text my friend

4:46 I have my app and because most beaches reasonably good after the stroke that I

4:56 can just say what I want to say and it converts it to it like a text and I used

5:08 that every day and the same with my computer so if I want to have in emails

5:13 I do the same thing really it's it's really hard and there was like artemus

5:23 rate there was days that I was very upset and maybe not angry but just

5:29 thinking I'm alone so I was in school but it was like I'm

5:40 in college so I was almost going to do my exams and then I was going to uni so

5:48 a lot of my friends went to uni and I was stuck on my own and I didn't do much

5:55 and that was maybe the worst time um because I didn't know what's gonna

6:04 happen with my life now because I was thinking I was gonna go to uni I would study what I wanted which was biology

6:13 and I would have a job after and then I would have a nice boyfriend I would have

6:24 kids with and I will be married I could have a house and I that was that was

6:34 that was gonna be when I had my stroke everything changed

6:41 and I was like well what am I gonna do I can't speak I can't read and write and I

6:49 could walk again so that was good but well and I was lost

6:57 and what do you think helped you because a lot of those things that you wanted to achieve you have achieved now so what do

7:05 you think worked for you so speech therapy was the first thing

7:12 that would helped me a lot say my speech was a bit better so when I

7:19 was at school I was working in the

7:23 weekend at a food shop and they phoned

7:35 me after my stroke a lot saying are you alright is there anything that they can do for a year I think it was a year that

7:46 it was just too difficult and so they were just talking to my parents and they

7:53 said you know I was you know better but you know then you know it's not the right time but it was a time maybe a

8:02 year that we went and face-to-face you

8:09 were talking because what I was doing before my stroke was very need to talk

8:16 to the customers and numbers and things like that that I can't do now and so I

8:23 was like well I can't do the job that I had before so they were very very nice

8:31 and they said we can have a different job that's a bit better for my situation

8:38 and I could have another kind of a person working with me just if there's

8:44 anything that I needed help or - so kind of just support me

8:50 and I had a name and also it said that I

8:56 had a stroke so they were really really really good and then after you worked

9:05 there for a while you felt like you could maybe do something different yes

9:10 so I contact my old teacher the same

9:19 school the one that I had my stray cat and said I like biology and I was going

9:26 to study the Uni is there anything that

9:32 I can do volunteering and to do with a

9:37 Balaji science so I was working still in

9:44 the supermarket but also working I think two days a week not it was not a full

9:53 day but it was something something that I liked and something practical which I

10:03 can do but also talking to people which was challenging but also that I was kind

10:11 of out and talking to people and that was really nice it was like I was a

10:20 normal person again which was and that gave me the confidence to apply for

10:27 other jobs and what do you do now so I well I'm not a scientist but I'm

10:38 kind of an I know

10:46 a senior technician made difficult words

11:00 like me yeah and you're working in cancer research aren't you what yes my cancer treatment

11:09 yes it's real treatment it's not no researchers actually help the cancer it's very interesting you like you

11:16 thinking it's something that I would would be doing maybe after I went to uni maybe maybe

11:26 more higher up maybe but it's been a very long struggle but I think the point

11:35 is that it's something that I wanted to do and I've been able to do it I think

11:41 also that um before my stroke I was not driving and when I was doing speech

11:48 therapy one of my goals was having some

11:56 things to do with driving because I

12:00 wanted to pass my driving test also now

12:09 you have a boyfriend you bought a house together you've come a very long way haven't you but it hasn't been easy and

12:18 people don't always know that you have aphasia they don't know that you've had a stroke you don't always tell them I

12:25 don't say it straightaway I think when I want to talk about it I

12:33 will and I'm not shy about it if people want to talk to me about it um but I

12:41 don't want to say it straightaway I had a stroke because I want to feel

12:48 like I am a normal being and on my am I don't want to feel like this is dairy

12:56 you had a stroke you're different and I think yes it's it's hard and

13:06 people think that I'm shy which I'm not

13:11 but I think you know I'm me and say my

13:18 boyfriend didn't know me before he's

13:23 really really good he really helps me um when I bought the house which is almost

13:32 two years ago that we bought the house um there was a lot of things that I couldn't do my phoning up people and and

13:41 he's really being amazing but I think the important thing that

13:50 even if there's difficulty with the

13:55 strike and aphasia I think if you have goals you can do it

14:04 it's been more challenging but you can do it it yeah and you've done a lot of

14:11 work raising awareness you've been on television here and radio and in a reality program and you've visited

14:19 people in hospital we run our support group for people with aphasia say you're still doing a lot of work to try and

14:25 raise awareness yeah it's always raising awareness and people still think that

14:33 young people can't have strokes so it's important to let people know that I mean people listening to this

14:41 that the conference will know that too and it can happen to anybody of any age but they when we did the videos that

14:50 we've done every year now we did it because we couldn't see lots of videos

14:59 people that have aphasia and and we didn't really realize that people want

15:07 to watch our videos because I think anything that exciting but I think the point is that people want to

15:14 watch it and like I always said you know I'm one person or stroke and aphasia are

15:22 different and I want to know that there's other people doing it because

15:29 then if more people what watch people's different straight enough easier that

15:39 that they would understand that what it's like because people like normal

15:46 people which I think I'm normal as well but they understand more people are not

15:55 going to be shy and not talk to people like strangers it will be just a normal

16:02 thing and and then people would be not so because there are so many people with aphasia and all don't people need to

16:11 know about it in yeah and so we're doing this video for the conference that's

16:19 happening in Australia yeah and you've been to Australia a few time something new because your sister lives there I mean before that when we went yeah we

16:28 won't know once before you love it that ain't me and hopefully going next Christmas yes I'm I wish I was there

16:35 with you Tim yeah thank you another time thank you okay