Monica

Hi I’m Mon. I’m married and we’ve got three sons and 6 grandchildren, 3 of each!
Before I retired I was working for the NHS as an administrator for a community HIV/AIDS
team in Brighton. Because I was office based I seldom had the opportunity to meet our
patients but I did get to know a lot of them through telephone contact. Over the 18 years I
was working for the team our caseload went up from 22 to over 350!
My husband was diagnosed with Multiple Myeloma about 8/9 years ago and so I became his
carer until I was taken ill myself with acute Pancreatitis. I was hospitalised for 5 weeks,
spending 3 of those weeks in intensive care in an induced coma. I had a further two weeks
rehabilitating and at last I was able go home! One week later I had my first stroke!!!
As strokes go I know that I was very, very lucky. I had from some initial weakness down my
right side, which is fine now, but my speech was not good, and still isn’t, although it has
improved.

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I had never heard of Aphasia until I was told what it was by my speech therapist. She also
encouraged me to join the closest Say Aphasia group to me, which was nearly an hour’s bus
ride away. I saw how beneficial the group could be and when I found out a new group was
starting up in Woodingdean I was very keen to be a part of it, although I was somewhat
surprised to be given the title of Peer Leader!

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