Small moments mark turning points in Margaret Bashford’s recovery from a stroke – being able to call out the names on presents at Christmas, and asking her husband how he’d like his coffee.
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Wayne Bashford shared his wife’s story at the Albury-Wodonga Stroke Recovery Club’s awareness week event on Thursday.
“Margaret had a stroke on February 14, 2001, and I’ve never forgotten Valentine’s Day since,” he said.
“I can tell you some stories that are funny, some that are sad, about myself and our family since that day we thought we’d lost her.
“After I picked her up from hospital, she couldn’t speak at all, and her speech has continually improved since then.
“One time, I came home and Margaret asked me if I’d like coffee – she said, ‘coffee with milk?’, and I said ‘yes’.
“Then she said, ‘coffee with milk?’, and I said ‘yes, with milk’, thinking we’d just been through this.
“And she said it again, and then I realised – she’d learned to say milk.”
It had taken four years of work with speech pathologists for Margaret to say the word, and 15 years on, she is still regaining her vocabulary.
She has been a member of the Stroke Recovery Club for 10 years and president for the past three.
In that time, she has successfully pushed for some taxis and buses on the Border to carry flash-boards to help people with speech difficulties to communicate.
Albury Wodonga Health speech pathologist Marion Vile said she was amazed by the group’s resilience, which meets on the last Thursday of every month at the Thurgoona Country Resort.
“I have been involved in the stroke recovery club for five years now and I recently read the NSW Stroke Recovery Association’s survey of recovery club members and why they come,” she said.
“For the people who come to these groups, 82 per cent of them felt it improved their well-being, 85 per cent said it reduced feelings of isolation.
“Groups like these help to bring people together.”
Mr Bashford said the main message during Stroke Awareness Week was for people to learn the signs through the FAST campaign, and to seek support.
“You’re in your own world after stroke, and if it’s not for the rest of us to help you out of it, you’re going to be stuck there,” he said.
“Empathy and encouragement will help bring them out of the dark.”
