The Fire Philosophy by Liam O'Connell

Author:Liam O'Connell
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Headline
Published: 2011-01-15T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter 9

Owen’s story

It was 22nd February 2009 – a bright Sunday – at precisely 10:21am, when Owen’s entire life would change for ever.

He had spent a fun night with his girlfriend Laraine at a friend’s house and they had slept in after enjoying some great food, and perhaps a little too much wine.

When he got up he struggled to put on his glasses and felt fuzzy headed... “Must be the alcohol,” he told himself. Then he had trouble putting his trousers on and Laraine was laughing at him stumbling around.

He found it even harder to brush his teeth, then a little later on he couldn’t bring himself to eat his favourite bacon sandwich. And then... he became more confused, his speech was slurred, the left side of his face dropped, he was dribbling from one side of his mouth... it was at this point that he realised he was having a stroke.

At the age of 30, a strong and healthy, six foot plus, successful businessman, Owen had faced many challenges in his life but nothing quite like this.

“I was in the ambulance, when my arm fell off the stretcher. I couldn’t move it and I knew that this was serious.” He was being rushed to hospital and was close to facing permanent disability or even death.

One in three people die from a stroke, one third will suffer disability and one third will recover. Luckily for Owen, because Laraine had noticed the symptoms of the stroke quickly, and North Staffordshire hospital had a specialist stroke unit, he was able to make a full recovery.

“Looking back, I had obviously been under lots of pressure at work; in fact I can remember coming home the Friday before my stroke, red in the face and worrying about work. I had been self-employed and running my own businesses for 12 years and perhaps I just couldn’t see the stress building up.”

But Owen had a critical choice; he could either look at what had happened as a massive negative, or as a positive. Owen chose the positive. “In a strange way it allowed me to press pause – stop the bus if you like. It was an excuse to inspect my life from a distance and do something different. In life you rarely get that chance, that opportunity.”

“I was perhaps still floating on the euphoria of simply not dying! I realised that in the past I had been very good at imposing huge amounts of pressure and worry on myself.”

“I knew that I had to do something different with my life. I had to maintain a positive mind-set. Underestimate the power of a positive attitude at your peril; it really made a difference to me.”

“In the early weeks after my stroke, I went through a very dark patch. Laraine, my family and friends, helped me loads. I was told by my specialist that a balanced lifestyle was important. Avoiding stress, eating healthy food, good exercise... I made the decision to radically change my life.”

“I was determined to regain my positivity; I would not let my stroke steal my life away from me.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.