How my teaching about the management of stroke would change after my own.

On 28 April 1983 I had a cerebrovascular accident. My left arm became useless ; the left side of my mouth felt strange and so did my tongue; swallowing was difficult and I tended to choke when I drank. For some time my arm felt a vibration, as if I had been lying on it for a long time. Fortunately my leg remained quite unaffected and I had no sensory abnormalities. For the first three days I had to live on semisolids. Solid food tended to accumulate in the corners of my mouth and under my tongue. After this the lips and tongue returned to normal, so that I could eat more normally in comfort. At the same time the movement came back to my shoulder. One odd clinical finding was that when I yawned the fingers of my left hand would move. After this, shoulder movements became fuller, elbow move? ments started to come back, and, eventually, wrist flexion and extension made their appearance. After two months, the fingers began to flex and extend, but the thumb and index finger recovered less than the others. For several weeks there was considerable oedema of the left hand, including the proximal part of the fingers. This was to produce some difficulties later. The clinical sequence of events described above produced a number of problems in daily living which had to be solved. Given that I had taught students about these for many years I began to think how my own experience would affect what I taught them. What follows is what I would now say.