I learned to speak again after a stroke by singing “The Carpenters”

It was Christmas in December 2006. At one point I was packing my suitcase to visit my partner’s family in Warwickshire and the next thing I knew I was being dragged down the stairs of my London flat towards an ambulance. My partner Chris later told me that he found me lying on the floor in our bedroom. We don’t know how long it lasted, but it was probably about five minutes. When I woke up that night in Charing Cross Hospital, I tried to tell someone I needed to go to the toilet, but the words wouldn’t come out. It was terrible.

I was only 34 years old, but after about 72 hours of tests, the doctors said that I had iron.

Chris says that although I was almost unconscious for the first three days, it was clear that the right side of my body was paralyzed. I had facial disfigurement and I could only hum and gesticulate. I spent three months in the department where I worked with a speech therapist, occupational therapist and physiotherapist. They gave me a chalkboard, and with my left hand I managed to cross out the strange word “drink.”

After a few weeks I was able to walk on the frame, but I still could not speak or move my right arm, although I could understand what people were saying. Someone explained what I have aphasiawhich is usually caused by a stroke (about 38 percent of stroke survivors suffer from it), and that if I were to speak again, it might not be for months or even years. I felt very helpless and depressed. I couldn’t imagine my life without talking, so I was determined to fight.

Speech therapy

It was the speech therapist who suggested that I try singing because the part of my brain responsible for singing was not damaged. I liked this idea because I come from a musical family. We always sang at home, usually songs from the 70s.

I could say a few words from nursery rhymes, but I couldn’t get any further than that. Although I speak English fluently (I studied here as a child and then returned in my twenties), my speech therapist suggested that stimulating my native language in Spain could help develop my language abilities.

I ended up spending over six months in residential care at the Stroke Recovery Institute in Madrid. My niece had just been born, so naturally I started singing Spanish children’s songs to her, even though I couldn’t speak. Then I tried another favorite: Doe deer, doe from The Sound of Music. It felt like a breakthrough. I discovered that I could also sing parts of The Carpenters. Then I found that after about a year of singing and physical therapy, I was able to start putting words together again and saying simple sentences, even if they weren’t always so clear. It was such a relief, but I knew I still had some way to go.

I can’t work

My partner traveled back and forth from London, but we didn’t have enough time together. I returned to the UK in 2008, three years after my iron. But I physically couldn’t work (I worked in marketing).

My good friends kept up with me, but I was frustrated that we couldn’t talk like we used to. I continued to see a speech therapist, but four years after my stroke I had acute cardiovascular disease followed by an autoimmune disease called lupus. Doctors said it was caused by antiphospholipid syndrome (also known as sticky blood), which caused my stroke.

I wondered what else life would bring me.