I learnt to talk again after a stroke by singing The Carpenters

I was only 34 when I woke up in hospital with facial disfigurement and aphasia after collapsing on my bedroom floor

It was Christmas in December 2006. One moment I was packing my suitcase to see my partner’s family in Warwickshire and the next thing I knew, I was being stretchered down the stairs of my London apartment to an ambulance. Later, my partner Chris told me that he had found me collapsed on the floor of our bedroom. We don’t know how long for, but it was probably around five minutes. When I woke in the night in Charing Cross hospital, I tried to tell someone I needed the loo but the word wouldn’t come out. It was terrifying.
I was only 34, but after about 72 hours of tests, the doctors said I had had a stroke.
Chris says that although I was almost unconscious during those first three days, it was clear that my body was paralysed down the right-hand side. I had facial disfigurement and I could only grunt and gesticulate. I spent three months on the ward, where I worked with speech, occupational and physical therapists. They gave me a chalkboard and, with my left hand, I managed to scratch out the odd word like drink.
After a few weeks, I was able to walk on a frame but I still couldn’t talk or move my right arm, although I understood what people said. Someone explained that I had aphasia, which is usually caused by a stroke (about 38 per cent of stroke survivors are affected) and that if I did manage to talk again, it might not be for months or even years. I felt very helpless and depressed. I couldn’t imagine life without speaking, so I was determined to fight.
It was the speech therapist who suggested that I try to sing because the part of my brain that is responsible for singing wasn’t affected. I liked this idea because I come from a musical family. We were always singing around the house, usually songs from the 70s.
I could just about manage a few words from kids’ songs but couldn’t progress much beyond that. Although I am fluent in English (having been at school here as a child and then returning in my twenties), my speech therapist suggested that stimulating my mother tongue back in Spain might help develop my language capabilities.
I ended up in residential care for over six months at the Institute for Stroke Recovery in Madrid. My niece had just been born so I naturally started singing Spanish baby songs to her even though I couldn’t talk. Then I tried another favourite: Doe a Deer, a Female Deer from The Sound of Music. It felt like such a breakthrough. I found that I could sing snatches of The Carpenters too. Then I discovered that after about a year of singing and physio, I was able to start piecing words together and speaking simple sentences again, even if they weren’t always that clear. It was such a relief but I knew I still had some way to go.
My partner commuted back and forth from London but we missed being together. I moved back to the UK in 2008, three years after my stroke. But I was physically unable to work (I’d been in marketing).
My good friends kept up with me but it was frustrating that we couldn’t have the conversations we’d had before. I kept having speech therapy but four years after my stroke, I had a heart attack followed by an autoimmune disorder called lupus. The doctors said this was caused by antiphospholipid syndrome (also known as sticky blood), which had caused my stroke in the first place.
I wondered what else life was going to throw at me.
By then, I’d found London too busy to deal with after everything I’d been through, so we moved to Bath. There I discovered the local branch of The Stroke Association and went on to assist a support group with one of the wonderful organisers, Liz Jeggo. Now, every fortnight, we meet up with young stroke survivors. One is a writer called Rebecca Paulinyi, who had a stroke in her twenties and has since written a chick-lit novel called At The Stroke of Thirty, which is about a woman who rebuilds her life after a stroke just before her thirtieth birthday.
When Liz told me that they were setting up an independent Bath Aphasia choir, I burst into tears of joy. At rehearsals, we had pictures and words on a screen to help us as we sang songs such as Bring Me Sunshine. It was really inspiring. I also found that there was a crossover of vocabulary, which helped my talking.
During the coronavirus pandemic, we went on Zoom and people from all over the country joined us. It was wonderful to see everyone’s faces light up when the world – and our own health – was so uncertain. We created a song in which each member wrote about their own anxiety of not speaking.
Now we meet regularly in person. There are about 30 of us. Everyone is able to take part in their own way: we love the solidarity and companionship. One member was a guitarist before his stroke and now he is playing again. Carers and families also sing with us because it gives them release. I hardly ever miss a session and if I do, I try to join in on Zoom. Singing also gives me confidence in everyday speech.
There’s no magic cure. Just hope and therapy. I’m one of the lucky ones who can talk in sentences now. But it’s hard to find the right words at times. Speaking after a stroke can be so exhausting for us survivors and many of us find conversation tiring. I know my vocabulary is still limited and that I’m not as articulate as I was. If strangers talk to me, they can tell after a few minutes that something isn’t quite right.
My personality has changed a bit too: Chris jokes that I used to be quite feisty before the stroke but that I am now gentler.
I try to be very positive about the future, especially as my balance has improved enough for me to do a sponsored cycle to raise money for our choir. I love singing the Queen song I Want To Ride My Bicycle at the same time. I am still trying to improve my right hand through Stroke Association art classes.
However, there are some things I cannot change. I was told that pregnancy is dangerous because of my sticky blood syndrome. So Chris and I decided to get two pointer dogs, who are our babies.
I often sing Top Of The World by The Carpenters while we’re out walking. That’s exactly how I feel. Singing has saved me and I hope it will save others too.
As told to Jane Corry, who wrote her latest Penguin novel I Died on a Tuesday after meeting a young stroke survivor while teaching a writing class 10 years ago. Sign up to #Sing4Stroke for the Stroke Association digital fundraising pack with ideas and tips on how to sing solo, together, at home, the office, school and elsewhere. For more information, visit Stroke Association.