What happened with your driving after the stroke?

Well, after my stroke, I recognised that I was a bit feebler and so forth and I certainly couldn’t drive the car’ normally and so I wrote, I wrote to the DVLA and told them I’d given up driving. I didn’t cancel my motor insurance or anything because I’m an eternal optimist and I expected to be driving again within a few months but I felt that, that one ought to tell the DVLA that you’ve had a stroke and you’re not fit to drive, which I wasn’t. And I think after about 4 or 5 months I thought I was OK again, so I wrote to them and said, ‘I think I’m OK now’ and they wrote to my doctor to see if he thought I was OK and he apparently said OK, so I received a letter from the DVLA saying, ‘You’re fine, carry on, there are no special provisions’ and I wrote to the insurance company, I kept them involved, telling them what I’d done and wrote to them telling that the DVLA had cleared me with no special provisions and they wrote back and said, ‘Your insurance cover has no special provisions’, so everythings normal in other words. So I drive using my left foot accelerator. I had the car modified with a simple gadget which consists of a bar or an axle with a flat doodle that does that and that can be pulled back out of the way for a normal right footed driver or put forward for me as a left footed driver and I press on this lever and it presses that accelerator. Simple. And not very expensive to have fitted.

Can you just explain what happened with getting your driving license back?

Well, my driving license was never, you know, taken off me. I mean, I’ve heard people who’ve had strokes and had their driving, their doctor’s informed the DVLA, their own doctor informed the DVLA but it didn’t happen with me. I could go out and drive if I wanted to but I couldn’t physically drive but there was nothing to stop me lawfully driving but anyway I said, ‘Well, I am going to do it legally. I informed the DVLA myself about it and it was actually my area rehab nurse, she came in and told me about the, going to [local city] for reassessment. So I wanted covered. I wanted to be sure if I wanted to drive again, I’m covered, if anything happens, I’ll be covered. So she got me an appoint with the, the driving assessment in [local city]. I went through and that’s about a 3 hour assessment. I was surprised what that was and it was all about, the first part was all about reaction, the Highway code, questions about how I feel, my mobility, things like that and then eventually she said, ‘Well take you in a car’ which I was very surprised. I said, ‘I’ve not driven for about 6 months here. She said, ‘It’s automatic. Well take you in the hospital grounds first of all and see how you go. So round the hospital grounds we went for about 20 minutes and she said, ‘Right, well go into town and into [local city]’, she said, ‘You look OK to drive and I was. I mean, I was very, don’t get me, I was very confident driving, very confident. I went out to [local city], through [local city] and I drove no problem. So we got back and she said, ‘I’m going to write to them and as far as I can see, theres no problem. I had to get an automatic car obviously. I said, ‘Right, that’s OK. So I got one back in a fortnight. I got a copy of the report for from her and she sent a report to the DVLA, the DVLA sent back to me, I sent my license back to them, they gave me a new license with how will I put it? Saying, my new license would say I can only drive automatic cars, which is no problem. So I got that back, I went shopping for an automatic car and I got one through in [city]. I sold my old car, got my car, got the automatic car and it’s been a lifeline again to me. It was very good.

How do you go through the process of getting your license back?

They told, they told me initially when I left the hospital that I wasn’t to drive for 3 months and I think most heart attack patients are told this, you see. So it was, once the occupational therapist started coming out, she asked about the driving and I said, ‘Well, I’ve been told not to drive for 3 months. ‘Right’, she said. And I was advised by the therapist to advise DVLA in Swansea of my condition and the fact I had been advised not to drive for 3 months in what was the order of events, you see. So, with the stroke, my peripheral on my right side has been affected as well, you see, slightly, which means you’ve got to scan, scan wider than normal. So I was, I was advised to go for a visual field test, eye test, which checks the peripheral vision. So I done that, got the prescription and the print-out and sent it to Swansea. A month later, Swansea sent forms back to me which had to be filled in by, a 3 part form, one to be filled in by myself, one by the hospital and one by my work and send them away back to Swansea with the, the prescription and the print-out. So that was sent away back and a month later, they came back giving me the, the OK to drive.

So thankfully, I got the OK from Swansea and it was a big, big step getting back in the car, I can tell you. Psychologically again, confidence thing again, you know. It seems to be, just building back this psychological thing, you know, jumping the psychological barrier and getting the confidence going because the first time I sat in the car was like, it was like the first time I had ever sat in the car, you know. Wheres the clutch, wheres the brakes, wheres the indicators, you know. And you’ve just got to sit, well, I had to sit anyway and take my time and go through the controls of the car without actually switching on, you know, just familiarising yourself with, as I say, indicators, brakes, clutch, you know, light switches, things like that . But again, I’ve been in the car a few times now and each time, it’s been getting better and getting better and getting better and it’s actually, again, it’s this thing, you’re building up confidence. I think I most, that I think, with the effect of the stroke was that I’ve got a lack of feeling between my right foot and the pedals. But again, it’s like, it’s like driving and braking on instinct. It’s, not quite that but it seems as if that’s how it’s doing, you know, and the lack of feeling, it’s not 100%, I can feel, you know, I can feel it but it’s the awareness is it’s less than it was, you know. So that’s another thing to get used to but, again, as I said, I’ve been out in the car 3 or 4 times now and it’s, each time it’s, it’s been, it’s been getting better, you know. But I think again that’s a confidence thing.

The DVA haven’t given me my license back. I’m still waiting for a consultant’s report so, to actually go and look for a house is very difficult and were off a bus route here because it’s quite a rural village. It’s, the buses are every couple of hours, to actually get into [local city] means a, an hour journey almost right through a lot of villages further down the road or a taxi which is more money, so I, I’m looking to move nearer to shops, nearer to the girls’ school and hopefully in time then find some form of work that I can walk to, that I can do on a, a part-time basis, even if it’s just a couple of hours each morning and then go home and do my physio and have my day sleep and, and built it up like that.

How do you get around instead?

Well, I’m encouraged to walk but this weather has been so cold and horrible I’ve had no inclination to do that and so I’ve recently invested in a little invalid scooter, electric scooter. I did in fact buy an electric powered bicycle thinking it would do me good first to give me some independence and give me some exercise which I badly needed. But when I bought it and got it home, I found I couldn’t ride it because I was just unsafe. I was too, too wobbly, I thought I was going to fall off and, and my psychologist said, ‘Well, it’s not” he just, he diagnosed that the problem with, that had affected the stroke had affected the various functions of the brain. I don’t know what these different parts are, the planning thing and then theres another compartment and then theres the execution, instructions that the brain emits and it’s that execution function that’s been damaged, he diagnosed from my, giving me little tests when I first saw him. He said, ‘That would explain why you couldn’t ride a bicycle. Mind you it’s 50 years since I’ve ridden one so I did find it scary. I really hated the thought of having to go out and use it and I was quite convinced I would crash and fall off in some way. As well as the roads being bad round here and even though it’s a quiet spot there is a lot of through traffic. So now, I’ve given up the idea of driving that so I’ve got a little motorised scooter, an invalid scooter which I hope will get me out. But I’ve only just bought it, so I’ve not tried it yet.

Can you tell me about using buses?

Right. Well, buses I think up until about hmmm 9, 10 months back I started taking buses and my husband said to me, ‘Now, look heres a piece of paper, theres the money and go off, go on’ and I found it at the beginning horrific. I was frightened. I couldn’t understand the left and the right. I couldn’t see were the buses going that way or that way. I can’t understand the amount of money. When I got the money and when I got in the bus, it seemed too quick to get my feet and my leg up into it and I was frightened of the whole thing was opened quickly or close, you see, and I would say to the man, ‘Can I have the bus please?’ but I, I was like, ‘Heres my ‘2 and I think it’s ‘1.30’ and then he said, ‘ bla bla bla’ you see and then he would tell me off because I hadn’t given him the piece of paper [coughing] and then I realised that I wanted to sit right near by so that I can press to a, a place to help people, so I can press and say I want to get off soon, very soon. I was really scared of that because, you know, I was carrying a bus, you know. And then and then eventually I thought, right now I’ve got to get up and I’ve got to press something and say [sighs] ‘I’d like to get out now’ but when I came out towards the door, I was terrified. I thought my legs were coming out too quick. It was fine actually but oh, it took me weeks and weeks to do it properly. I’m much better now and of course I find, I still find it very difficult when I have difficulties about going in the right directions, the right amount of money, whether it’s freezing cold, rain, an umbrella to carry oh, it’s horrible. It makes me up, almost upsetting, particularly if I’ve gone to try and buy and buy something, I don’t know, potatoes or something. Horrible. Horrible.

But have you found it an achievement to be able to use the bus?

I’m getting better and better but, oh, it has been very, very hard work. Very hard work. Mm hmm.

Yeah, yeah. They, they had to, the nurses, they brought me home in, with a, a wheelchair. They had, later on, they came and took the wheelchair away when they realised that I was alright because they were visiting me all the time. All the time. And when I was, I was able to walk around they sent me the nurse who used to come here, a young man, and used to go out with me to ride in a bus and see the peoples reaction. So every morning they used to come and we take 76 bus, just sit down, we sit down with me and we talking and see how people react to people with a situation like me because some of them when you go and sit near them, they don’t want to know. Ooooh, I shift away from you. You feel so embarrassed but you know you are sick, it wasn’t like that before, so you don’t care and the, the nurse wants to ride with me and every morning they come and take me and we go for a bus ride to get my confidence back and I did indeed. I owe him a lot. So they did help me.

And so now do you go out and go on the bus on your own?

Yeah, I do, yeah. I do it without my stick unless I go somewhere, then I will take it but I don’t, I don’t even use the stick now.