Stroke Podcast Episode 10 – Clare Coffield’s stroke recovery has been challenging but rewarding.
Clare’s life experiences have all been vital in teaching her the skills she needed to recover from a stroke after a recent Brain Bleed. As a result of the stroke, Clare had been left with deficits to her arm and leg and she underwent rehabilitation to learn how to walk and regain the use of her arm.
Clare realized early that attitude was the key to her achieving outstanding results and becoming independent again. She made many changes to the way she lived her life, the food she ate, the way she allowed others to speak with her, and paid more attention to her own internal dialogue.
Clare has come a long way since ending up in the hospital and is now back to being an active member of her community.
She is recovering more and more every day and is paying attention to the small changes she is noticing
Join us for a fascinating discussion on all things from marriage breakdowns, re-inventing yourself, new beginnings, and overcoming stroke.
If you enjoyed Clare’s approach to Stroke Recovery you can learn more about her by clicking below.
To learn more about Clare please click here!
Transcription:
Intro 0:04
Recovery After Stroke podcast. Helping you go from where you are to where you’d rather be.
Bill 0:14
Hi everyone, Bill Gasiamis. Thanks for joining me for another episode of the Recovery After Stroke podcast. Just before we get started, I just wanted to share something that I heard during an opportunity to listen to an interview with Dr. john gray.
Bill 0:29
The author of Men are from Mars, women are from Venus. When people eat sugar, one of the number one minerals they lose is lithium. Lithium is one of the most widely used and studied medications for treating bipolar disorder. Lithium helps reduce the severity and frequency of mania. It may also help relieve or prevent bipolar depression.
Bill 0:55
Studies show that lithium can significantly reduce suicide risks. This lithium also helps prevent future manic and depressive episodes. And as a result, it may be prescribed for long periods of time even between episodes.
Bill 1:11
As maintenance therapy, lithium acts on a person’s central nervous system, brain and spinal cord. doctors don’t know exactly how lithium works to stabilize a person’s mood. But it is thought to help strengthen nerve cell connections in the brain region and are involved in regulating mood, thinking and behavior.
Bill 1:34
Now, that made me wonder, could bipolar disorder be an allergic reaction to sugar or other foods that are metabolized by the body like sugars? This episode of the Recovery after Stroke podcast is brought to you by Bill Gasiamis. If you want to find out more about me in the work that I do, just go along to the website and if you feel like getting in touch just Go out the contact form, and I’ll get back to you.
Bill 2:02
Now it’s on with the show. My guest today is Claire Coffield. Claire is a life coach and leadership trainer for middle to senior managers who are looking for support to get their stressful lives back in balance. This is the business she started in 2007 in the UK, just as the recession took hold, but managed to make a success of it.
Bill 2:24
Despite the odds being stacked against her. On Thursday, the 22nd of October 2015. She was giving a coaching talk about goal setting to a group of women when she had a stroke in front of them. Luckily her daughter-in-law Jo, a doctor was in the audience and quickly called the ambulance as she recognized what was going on.
Bill 2:48
Now nearly six months later. Claire is making a fabulous recovery from being completely paralyzed on her right side to being lifted on a hoist to a wheelchair and Then a four-wheeled walking frame to now walking independently and feeling elated, and excited. And looking forward to the next chapter. Welcome to the podcast. Claire, how are you today?
Claire Coffield 3:13
I’m really good today, Bill. Thank you very happy today.
Bill 3:18
Excellent. I just wanted to say that that’s a pretty amazing journey and one that I can relate to which I know that you’re aware of. But today is not about me. It’s about you. And before we get into the nitty-gritty of all the stuff that went wrong a few months ago. Tell me a little bit about yourself.
Clare Coffield 3:38
Oh, I’m, well I’m a 65-year-old mother and grandmother. I’ve got two lovely little granddaughters. I’ve got a wonderful son and his lovely wife, Joe, who all support me all four of them really support me enormously. I have been doing leadership and management and life coaching training for quite a few years and tried to set up my business again in Australia when I moved here five years ago.
Clare Coffield 4:16
And but you know, that’s been tricky. Not easy to move across to the other side of the world and just start all over again. But I was doing okay. I love the coaching. I love training. So I write all my own training material, all of that kind of stuff, but it was good.
Bill 4:39
To be clear, where does that awesome accent come from?
Clare Coffield 4:43
Oh, was on the west coast of Scotland, and Glasgow originally, and lived in England for about 30 years before I emigrated.
Bill 4:54
So you’ve been out of Scotland most of your life?
Clare Coffield 4:58
I suppose. So. Yes. I have still got family there a brother and a sister. Lots of nieces nephews, extended family.
Bill 5:09
Isn’t it amazing how the accent still hasn’t left you after all those years?
Clare Coffield 5:15
Oh, I hope not. I’m hanging on to it. In fact, that’s one thing that surprised me when I came here that people keep saying to me, oh, say something to me, Clare. I love your accent. And it never occurred to me when I moved here that people would really like it. So that’s been quite a bonus. I really love that.
Bill 5:33
Yeah, it’s a little bit different than some of the Aussie accents. So we really appreciate it. Now, Clare, you decided to leave Scotland? Why did you leave Scotland and the UK to come over to Australia?
Clare Coffield 5:48
Really leaving. The Northeast of England is fair. I was living when I emigrated. Really it was a major decision. Quite honestly, when my first grant child Elsa was born, and I came over to Melbourne and I met her, and I saw the pride and the love on my son’s face, I just thought, oh my goodness, this little girl has stolen my heart.
Clare Coffield 6:17
What am I doing in the northeast of England on my own when this beautiful family is over in Melbourne? So we started talking about me getting over here. And it took two and a half years, so it wasn’t a quick transition.
Clare Coffield 6:34
But during that time, I developed my business and was working really, really hard trying to save some money to get myself here. And then finally the visa came through and it was wow, you know, I’m off and going. And so it was a major decision, but quite honestly, one of the best ones that I’ve made in my life I’ve got no regrets and move I do miss family members, of course, but scapes and amazing things.
Clare Coffield 7:05
So on a weekly basis have a brother in England and a sister in Scotland that we’re Skyping once a week, and it’s that that makes it a lot easier.
Bill 7:17
Yeah, we’re gonna get onto that topic of Skype because it’s really amazing but in a little while, I want to get into some other things first, tell me about the talks and the presentations that you do for different people regarding coaching, is it?
Clare Coffield 7:34
Yes, coaching and leadership styles really. So it’s been very much middle to senior female managers. They just seem to be the ones that come to me although some men have as well, but mostly, mostly women.
Clare Coffield 7:49
And I’ve given talks on things like moving forwards and decision making and time management and organization. skills and so all the tools that I felt that I needed when I was a manager, but I could, I can talk a lot more interesting about it now that I can look back on it because I don’t think I was a particularly great manager 2030 years ago,
Clare Coffield 8:22
I was too intent on getting the work done stress to bits, and I didn’t spend enough or I didn’t know, I didn’t know enough about the relationships between people. So that’s really what I bring to my coaching and my training now that I’ve now got a much better understanding of how people react to different styles of management.
Clare Coffield 8:48
And so, like most things I’ve done, I’ve learned the hard way. But quite honestly, when I’m training, that’s what people want to hear. They don’t want to hear that. You’re a wonderful Manager, they want to hear all the mistakes she made.
Bill 9:06
I want to hear how terrible you were. But actually, more importantly, they want to hear about how you overcame those challenges when you’re, you know, quote-unquote, bad manager.
Clare Coffield 9:19
Yeah. I think it was a baptism of fire really, I think, oh, gosh, it was such a stressful and difficult time. That was because I thought I was doing a good job at the time, and by getting all the work done. So that’s the management side.
Clare Coffield 9:41
But on the leadership side, I didn’t know about encouraging and supporting, and uplifting people. I didn’t know that then. I’ve learned so much more through, I think my own life experiences of being divorced twice. not clever, but there you go. And that I was absolutely battered and bruised by the end of the second one. And
Clare Coffield 10:07
No, not actually better than bruise me.
Clare Coffield 10:10
Oh, thank goodness No, no, no, no, but certainly emotionally. That problem is that they probably are the right terms. But no, not No, no physical violence. No, certainly not, thank goodness. And quite honestly, looking back at the clear that I was 20 years ago when I was going through my second divorce, I was not a confident woman. I didn’t respect or value myself. So that was no great foundation for a marriage. So it’s not a big big surprise that it didn’t last.
Bill 10:49
I’ve got an interesting question then. Were you looking at your husband at the time as the person to reinforce the things that you felt You weren’t enough of or couldn’t do, or is that what you were looking for?
Clare Coffield 11:05
Absolutely, um, I put far too much stress on him to be my everything, you know, absolutely everything. And
Bill 11:17
I noticed that I noticed that there’s a lot of anecdotal evidence that a lot of women tend to do that. I’m not sure that I know a lot of men that look for their wives to sort of make them feel great about themselves. Most men are cocky enough to feel great about themselves at some level. Of course, all men have their own insecurities.
Bill 11:38
But, I noticed that there is a bit of a pattern with women at sort of that 35 to 45 age group that, you know, look for external sources of reinforcement. And when they don’t get an itch, they struggle really, really badly. And as a coach myself, I find that It’s really empowering for women to come to terms with the fact or to realize for the first time that they weren’t actually seeking a relationship for the right reasons they were seeking something else. Is that something that you’re late to?
Clare Coffield 12:13
Oh, absolutely, you’ve got it spot on. And obviously, that puts far too much stress on the partner, if you’re looking for him to fulfill everything for you. And then when it doesn’t work, well, guess what, you’ve lost everything.
Clare Coffield 12:30
So I was at such a low ebb when all of that broke down. And that really it was a rebuilding from the basics upwards. For me at that time, and the way I did it, was to start on a course myself, confidence building for me. When I was shattered up like many people in life It isn’t there’s never just one thing at a time that happens. SoI had.
Bill 13:02
So there was a course that you actually enrolled in.
Clare Coffield 13:05
Yes. So I was a student, and it was in a women’s center in Newcastle in the UK. And I absolutely loved it. So it was all about time management and confidence and all these things. And I thought, wow, I love this. And it really helped me to start seeing myself as an individual and somebody of value. And as I got into the course, the organizers asked me,
Clare Coffield 13:32
Was I a trained trainer? And I said, No, not at all. And they said, Well if you could, if you could get your qualifications, we would employ you. So all of a sudden these doors start to open. So going from being a student on the course to then teaching it and driving around the northeast of England delivering these courses to women in church holes where you have to keep the court on because it was so cold.
Clare Coffield 14:00
Or, you know, community centers or schools or whatever, they just sent me around to so many different places, and the women were wonderful. And we all had the same basic lack of confidence in ourselves. And at that time I was going through a divorce. But somehow I found the strength not to talk about myself I found the strength in seeing how much the women were growing and blossoming.
Clare Coffield 14:32
And it was really only at the very end of my work, they would maybe ask me some questions and then I would reveal what had been going on. And, but that really built my emotional muscles having to do that. And I loved it. I loved the teaching side of it. It was wonderful, but I don’t remember how, how much it impacted me.
Clare Coffield 14:58
Yes, it helped me. I mean, Like when I would do a topic on change and transition, oh my goodness, I thought I like I really got to, you know, stand up and talk about what you can do and change in transition. And I remember the first time I did it, I had to go out of the room and be sick. I was so emotional about what I was going through at home, but I didn’t want to tell them about it. And so I just said, Excuse me for a minute.
Clare Coffield 15:29
So, being sick in the loop, and then coming back in, oh my goodness that built my strengths. So we’re talking 20 years ago, me being a very lawyer. And there’s a story I do tell about me going to that women’s Training Center for the first time from us. And it was in a kind of dark hallway and at the end of the hallway, there’s this big door and it had a brass doorbell behind the door. was the course I was enrolling in.
Clare Coffield 16:03
And I was standing there thinking, I can’t do this. I cannot go and meet all these new people when I’m in bits and I’m just I just felt shattered, destroyed so emotionally. And I stood there and I thought, what if I don’t go in? Well, what, what that what more damage would I actually be doing myself if I didn’t ring the doorbell?
Clare Coffield 16:29
So I don’t know how long I stood. There’s my finger poised over the doorbell. Finally, I pressed it and this lovely woman came to the door and welcomed me in and that was it. I was away but the thing about that story is it’s, it’s not a poor nice story. It’s a realization that when I was in front of a new class of women, they probably all felt that before they came in, and I was mature, too. So it gave me a great connection. was the woman because I could say to them, I know how much it’s taking you to get yourself here today.
Clare Coffield 17:07
And immediately all the barriers would drop away. And it was just, it was, um, it was a story that was totally true. And that really resonated with the students. And so they were helping me I was helping them win-win situation. Marvelous. Awesome, awesome.
Bill 17:28
Tell me have been there but I’m curious to hear from somebody who I’m interviewing and you might as well be the one because you’re just the perfect candidate for this because you’ve been there a couple of times. What’s it like to be at rock bottom?
Clare Coffield 17:43
very frightening. Very, very scary. hopeless.
Clare Coffield 17:51
I mean, literally lying on the floor with a gin bottle. That’s how bad it was. Yeah.
Clare Coffield 17:58
And just feeling that there were no hawks, there was nothing to look forward to that I have that my life was a complete mess, and there was nobody coming to help me.
Bill 18:12
But at some point, at some point, there’s a turnaround, right? So we get to rock bottom, we may not realize that we’re there. And at some point, something happens to start turning us around. What was it other than that particular cause? I know you’ve got to the cause. But what was the thing that created that little turnaround and this beginning to sort of start to see the light at the end of the tunnel?
Clare Coffield 18:38
Two things happened. One day when as I say, I was on the floor with a gin bottle. Somebody rang the doorbell and it was the Jehovah’s Witnesses. Everybody tells them to buzz off and go away. Yes. I opened the door. I didn’t care who was away I said come in.
Clare Coffield 18:58
Should they come in and they may Mi T. And I think one week they brought me soup. I mean, they were amazing people Wow. And they weren’t asking for anything. And I just went blah, blah, blah, blah, blah topped it all out. And they bless them. They listen to all this stuff. And I just thought Hook Perfect Strangers care about me like this There were so gentle, and so canes
Bill 19:24
And just when you needed them just at the right time.
Clare Coffield 19:27
I know. I mean, and normally I would have thought, Oh, you don’t answer the door to those people. But they just came at the right time. I mean, I didn’t join that chatter anything, join something else which was equally crazy. But that’s another story.
Bill 19:43
And the thing about Jehovah’s Witness, whether it’s the church or the people that represent it, it’s really other people that have told us that we shouldn’t pay attention to them or we shouldn’t like them.
Bill 19:55
So there are these perceptions that are not even our own experiences that may Us, I’m going to close the door on somebody who just absolutely turned up at the perfect time and started to help you turn your life around. You know, like a blessing that I’ve just turned up. Isn’t that amazing?
Clare Coffield 20:14
Well, I’ve noticed this going on since that time at times when I think I don’t know what I’m doing, I don’t know where to go next. Somebody either for this may or knocks on the door or something. It’s bizarre but I find it very encouraging and I’ve been I’ve thought a lot about Gordon, what all of that means. And I don’t know, I don’t know the answer to it. But I do feel at those times, that there’s something more going on in my life than just me.
Bill 20:50
Yeah, yeah.
Clare Coffield 20:52
I don’t know how, how I would call it what I would call it.
Clare Coffield 20:58
I mean, I’m not in a church now. I feel that I’m part of different communities and I meet so many people that are over like minds that that we’re not alone somehow and that if you reach out that are people who pop up and help you, it’s incredible.
Clare Coffield 21:18
So that was the first thing that happened. The second thing that happened was that my husband well then was insisting that the house be sold. And so he arrived to do the packing up but was quite smart of them. So I did all the packing up. So everything’s getting labeled and then nobody was going at nor home to go to.
Clare Coffield 21:47
And he phones me. And all he wants to know is how have I saved the divorce papers on something it was like a lightbulb moment. And I thought, Oh, my God, I’m dealing with this. He’d gone to the other end of the country he wasn’t dealing with any of it.
Clare Coffield 22:09
And he said this was it This was the clincher. I really need you to sign them today because I’m going sailing this weekend. And I thought sailing never Singleton nice life you know he a big message clear this man’s moved on. Because Kara Chutney tells us about you.
Clare Coffield 22:33
So this was that was such a gift because I immediately thought that was it. Don’t want more for this man any longer. And I think I just started doing the training as a student. And I thought, you know, he’s got the right approach. He sounded great. I was in bits. And I thought, well, could I be made she know. I’m both Am I doing what am I doing with my life? He she’s all sorted. Well, maybe not all sorted
Bill 23:05
So to speak. He was on the way. I was gonna say that he wasn’t waiting for the divorce to go sailing, was he?
Clare Coffield 23:11
Absolutely not so. And I think about two nights before men had broken into my house. And I was lying in bed, and I had them. And I got the police and all of that. But I was laying there absolutely terrified. thinking, oh my god, you know, where’s my husband when I need him? And I’m not claiming on the insurance.
Clare Coffield 23:40
They’re saying, We need his signature. I’m thinking, damn it. He’s not even here. I’m thinking. I’m dealing with this. So there were various things that went on that were pretty horrible, but it really gave me a shake. really gave me a shake that Come on, girl. You’ve got to start looking out for yourself.
Bill 24:00
It’s interesting where the lessons come from, isn’t it? added in a moment of divorce, for you came a moment of clarity as well. So yeah, from rock bottom came clarity. I’m not sure how alive but it did. And it’s amazing when you pay attention to what the blessings are in each situation whether they appear to be good or bad.
Clare Coffield 24:22
Well, isn’t that interesting that I eventually, you know, years later called my business clarity? Ah so interesting that that’s a very special word for me, Bill.
Bill 24:38
Yeah, the gene wouldn’t have helped in the clarity initially.
Clare Coffield 24:42
Oh, no, no, no, no.
Bill 24:45
You probably wouldn’t recommend that as a way to help.
Clare Coffield 24:49
That was so desperate that was just awful. And I think when the doctor came and I was coughing up green stuff From my stomach, she was saying you’re actually that’s the pit of your stomach, it’s all you know, is all deteriorating or whatever, what she would have used medic. And that gave me a shock because oh my god, I’m actually killing myself here.
Bill 25:13
Yeah, there’s a part of it that maybe you don’t understand that I picked up on there that I’ll share with you in the listeners is that actually, the pit of your stomach is where your identity lies. So, so physiologically, your identity lies in your stomach.
Bill 25:31
That’s where we identify with different things. And that’s why when people say you are what you ate, you know, you take in whatever you consume, and you are there because it becomes part of you. And that’s where we haul at hold our identity. So your identity was going through a massive shift. You were a married woman for the second time being divorced.
Bill 25:53
And you now have to face life as a single woman, and with God knows what requirements and expectations and all the things that come after becoming single for the second time after a, you know, in inverted commas a failed marriage. Yeah. But when your identity is challenged, often, some of the time what we actually have to do is some people won’t eat. Some people will binge, and some people will purge.
Clare Coffield 26:25
Right.
Bill 26:26
And that is because there’s a major shift happening and somehow, the body’s guiding you to this weird place of how to either make the shift or let it occur. So the throwing up is kind of supporting the shift, even though it feels yucky and disgusting. It’s purging all of the old stuff that’s been holding you back.
Bill 26:46
And for some people that aren’t prepared to accept that or listen to that and you seem like you are that type of person. They will eat and binge and they will feel this stomach full of stuff so the signals from the stomach don’t go up. Don’t come out in the form of feelings and don’t come up in the form of information.
Bill 27:05
So people will, will miss that. And then some people, and you don’t sound like you were ever going to go down the path of becoming an alcoholic or anything, but some people will continue to drink to drown out the voices and the noises. Yeah. So. So for me listening to that, you may not have known that then. But that was a massive, a massive signal to me that there’s an identity shift happening and you’re actually moving on.
Clare Coffield 27:33
Well, I’m glad to hear it. Because I could not stay the way I was. It was just an everyone else trying to vote for me was in pain. You know, my son who was I think he was in Scotland at the time. I was in England, my sister in Scotland, and my brothers lived in Newcastle.
Clare Coffield 27:52
They were all so distressed by the state I was in Yeah, I just couldn’t, I just couldn’t control it until the things were happening. And I thought This can’t go on. Yeah, absolutely can’t go on.
Bill 28:04
And if we go, and if we go to that story you told about how you were about to walk into the classroom, the first time to do the course you had to go up and you had to go out and throw up again. Yeah. So again, you’re releasing all of the stuff that was holding you behind into this old life.
Bill 28:23
And it’s not a metaphor, it’s your body actually helping you through the process. And as you purge and release that, your legs and your stomach is allowing you to take action towards the new version, the new life, and you’ve gone in there and you’ve learned how to be clear that identifies as a single person and so on.
Clare Coffield 28:43
Yeah, I wish I had no nothing bill. Because it was just a nightmare, to be honest.
Bill 28:49
So hopefully people listening who have been through something similar or curious about what that means and they could get in touch with me and we could talk about that in more detail but But your life, you know, is interesting. Yet again, it becomes even more interesting because a little while later you’re in Australia, and everything is going swimmingly.
Bill 29:12
And, you know, there’s this guy who rocks up to one of your presentations and listens to what you have to say. And he gives you a card. And at that event, the card that it gives you, and the name on the card is Mike, Bill Gasiamis. And we get to know each other and we start talking about the things that we’ve got in common.
Bill 29:32
And one thing that we didn’t have in common was what happened to you later, but what I was doing was also presenting courses about how to help people recover and overcome illness and, be healthier, and let go of stress and all those types of things. And you were in the, in the back of the room and you met a friend of ours, who was in the previous podcast, Episode, Brigid Sigley.
Bill 30:01
And then all of a sudden all of these people that have come into your life then come together to support you. After something dramatic happened to your health tell us exactly what it was that was going on. We mentioned it briefly. But what happened to you that day when you were doing that presentation on Thursday, the 27th of October 2015?
Clare Coffield 30:21
Yes.
Clare Coffield 30:24
Well, I left the house that night, very excited about doing this talk to a group of lovely women in my friend’s house, Nikki Ellis, who’s been a great supporter of mine. So she hosted this for me. And I was talking about goal setting and what I’ve been learning recently about the various parts of the brain and how learning about the various parts of the brain and linking that to goal setting can actually make it easier for us.
Clare Coffield 30:55
So that stuff, I just love doing all of that and As I’m giving my talk, I’m always very animated when I’m talking. And luckily for me, the stock was starting. But I didn’t lose my speech. Many people lose their speech, but I didn’t. I think that would have killed me, Bill, but I couldn’t talk. That would have done for me, I think.
Clare Coffield 31:24
So I just kept going, but I was feeling quite lightheaded, no pain. And then I felt that my arm wasn’t moving properly when I’m drawing on the flip chart. And then I tried to turn around from the flip chart and my right leg just wouldn’t move. And I thought, oh, but being a professional presenter, I thought you just keep going. The SRAM was gone.
Clare Coffield 31:54
So I just kept going and then
Clare Coffield 31:59
there’s the end of I’m giving out prizes. And because we make all quite fun and everything, and I was dragging my leg, I was moving to get a photograph taken. And I thought, I’m actually dragging my leg or alley to have a look at this later, you know. So, fortunately for me, my daughter loves in the audience, Sergio was there. And Joe’s always been a great supporter of my shoulders supports anything that I’m doing.
Clare Coffield 32:26
She’s a doctor, so she clots straight away. I was having a stroke. I didn’t. And she had a friend who’s a nurse with her as well. So they both knew what was going on. And my daughter, like come over to me and said, Clare, I think you should sit down. And I’m saying, I’m fine. I just need to finish this, you know. And so she got me to sit down and as I sat down my whole right sides just went flop. And she said, right, I’m getting the ambulance. No, and I’m saying I’m getting sweaty.
Clare Coffield 33:00
And I just, you know, I was just keeping going and saying, Oh that prizes and what we’re going to have champagne later and you know it did not occur to me that I was having a stroke. Absolutely no, not. But now that I see the flip charts my friend Nikki has brought me back. My handwriting’s all over the place my Spelling airport. It’s an absolute mess. So seemingly people that have heard me speak before, we’re beginning to think, What is wrong with Clare, what’s going on?
Bill 33:37
Once we made a drink drinks on the way in?
Clare Coffield 33:39
It was taught to me so because I had never drunk before I would give a talk. Yeah. Oh, so and I’ve got all my notes there. But normally I just need a card and I’m away. I know what the next thing is. I remember being over because Nikki’s lovely little girl was holding my clipboard. For me was my notes on it.
Clare Coffield 34:02
And I remember going over thinking, I don’t know, excuse me, everybody. I’m not sure what’s coming next. So, as I was going through all of this, I’m having a brain hemorrhage. So the whole of my left side of my brain just went pop. Obviously, I didn’t know what was happening, but all the motor skills and all that stuff were just going crazy.
Clare Coffield 34:26
But for me, being there that night was those people absolutely saved my life. My daughter-in-law saved my life. There’s no doubt about it. Yeah. Because normally on a Thursday night, I’m sitting at home watching TV on my own, with the phone, probably on a charger in a different room. I wouldn’t maybe even recognize what was happening, I would have been able to get help. So
Bill 34:55
You have a knack for being at the right place at the right time. Jehovah’s Witness knocking on the door, a doctor in the room when you’re having a stroke. Pretty awesome.
Clare Coffield 35:08
It’s, you couldn’t make it up Really?
Clare Coffield 35:11
That’s what I see sometimes. I don’t know what it is, but somebody’s looking after me. Yeah, there’s no doubt about it something or somebody looking after me
Bill 35:20
Your message, it’s all about your message. You’ve got a massive message to sort of get out there and people need to hear it. And this is what’s part of that message. I can relate to everything that you say. So for people listening, who don’t know what it’s like to be a stroke, or to experience a stroke, which is fantastic. We hope you never find out.
Clare Coffield 35:38
Yeah,
Bill 35:39
But the reality Clare is that one in six people will have a stroke. He or one person every 10 minutes has a stroke in Australia. Oh my God, that’s terrible. It kills more women than breast cancer. And it kills more men than prostate cancer. Hey, and it runs second in the amount of paper That dies from stroke only to heart failure, heart disease.
Bill 36:05
Oh, and it’s the leading cause of disability. Right? Okay. So there’s some serious, you know, repercussions to stroke and we need to talk about strike and we need people to understand and hear about it.
Bill 36:16
And if they should recognize that somebody is not doing well, if the speech slurs if they can’t move one part of their body one side of their body, if they notice the face drooping, that there’s really definitely time to do something about that and not allow the person experiencing those symptoms to convince them that they’re okay because I did the same thing. I was telling everyone I was fine. Yeah. And I was bleeding in the brain for seven days before I went to the hospital.
Clare Coffield 36:49
Oh my goodness. Well, luckily for me, my daughter-in-law doesn’t take any nonsense.
Clare Coffield 36:57
But that’s to my benefit. I mean, She’s a very gentle woman. I would imagine her patients love her. She’s our gastroenterologist. And she’s so gentle, that she’s very direct as well. And I respond well to that. So when George says to me, Clare, I think you should sit down. I’ll do something for me to react to here.
Clare Coffield 37:23
But what I didn’t realize was that stroke was life-threatening. When the doctor in the hospital told me that I’d had a stroke. And my immediate reaction was, is he talking to me? Well, but do you mean me? I’m pretty healthy. What? You know, I know walking every day. You know, I stopped drinking a few months ago, and for some reason don’t know why.
Clare Coffield 37:49
And I’m thinking, How can I possibly have had a stroke? That’s for all people. All right, but what I didn’t realize was that My son and my daughter model Tell me for many, many weeks was the night that I was taken into hospital. They were told, well, we don’t know if she’s going to survive. Wow. So I didn’t know that they had been through that, though, of my survival.
Clare Coffield 38:21
I knew how I felt, you know, frightened and scared and shocked. But I didn’t know for a long time that they had been through that and they, they must have been through hell and back that night.
Bill 38:33
Yeah. Yeah, it is very difficult for the families. The families who experienced a stroke, I feel at least my experience was doing a little bit tougher than the stroke patient and that’s what hopefully was happening in our home my wife was sort of beside herself, and all of a sudden she went from being a mum, and just the regular person who goes to work.
Bill 39:00
And does the stuff that she does to be a carer for somebody who didn’t have a memory, who didn’t have any ability to drive or do anything other than the basics. And it was a really interesting time. So I’m glad that now you’re getting much better.
Bill 39:18
As we keep chatting and before we move on, I just want to mention for anybody out there listening who wants to find out more about stroke, can go to the website, www dot stroke foundation.com.au. And it’s the main body in Australia that does research and cares for people or helps people that are experiencing a stroke.
Bill 39:42
They’re amazing organizations, they provide a heap of information and tools around how to manage stroke and how to recover from a stroke. But now I want to talk about your recovery because again, it was this sort of time in your life to be at rock bottom.
Clare Coffield 40:00
I had that that’s interesting. I would say that the divorce was worse. Oh, wow. But then this time, I had my son and daughter-in-law and the grandchildren around me to help me.
Bill 40:14
And he has learned the skills of resilience. And yet I picked up on all the things that you’ve learned.
Clare Coffield 40:19
Absolutely. So 20 years on, I had far more skills than I’ve ever had, in thinking it through but also helping myself and accepting help from other people, which I used to be not good at all. Yeah,
Bill 40:36
but it’s a bit hard not to accept help when you’re in a wheelchair and can’t move your right side, isn’t it?
Clare Coffield 40:41
Just a bit? Yes. And so, I mean, there’s a lot of trauma going on, I realized that and i know i forgot what your question was. Sorry, Bill.
Bill 40:54
That’s right. There wasn’t a question. I was leading to rock bottom whether it was rock bottom, but you answered that. Yes. It kind of wasn’t what the divorce was worth. And you had built resilience skills. So
Clare 41:07
I think that’s the difference. Maybe it’s not fair to say that the divorce was worse, because I was a different woman then I was very, very, very vulnerable, very insecure, lacking in confidence, an S le, and 20 years of doing all these courses myself, because I’ve continued to do lots of personal development and, you know, delivering courses for other people that is, that’s helped me change into a completely different kind of woman.
Bill 41:41
Yeah. How long? How long was it before? Did you get out of the wheelchair? Were you in rehab? What happened?
Clare Coffield 41:49
Okay, so I was in Austin for about five days, and then they moved me to the Royal Town. So, Royal towel, but I was on a hoist because I couldn’t go to bed at all.
Bill 42:09
Did you see the photo I put off myself, Facebook with my band hanging out of the hoist?
Clare Coffield 42:19
I can’t play Snap with that one. Any photographs, I’m glad to say that absolute sight.
Clare Coffield 42:28
But I do remember my sense of humor coming to help me at that point, because I could see that some of the nurses were quite anxious about not bumping me and you know, and I thought, oh my god, I mean, I just couldn’t move by right sides. So, um, after a couple of times on this hoist, which I’m in the hoist up to the ceiling,
Bill 42:52
like a marionette.
Clare Coffield 42:55
So I started saying, Well can I have the what was it called? The clicker or something the device that moves up and down so I was saying well you to hold the site Give me the thing I’ll move it right so I would say right going up lady’s underwear, to the basement haberdashery, laughing
Bill 43:24
Fawlty Towers,
Clare Coffield 43:26
Ridiculous, but, you know, that kind of thing. And it just happens. Yeah. But also taking literally the control was important for me to say, I’ll move up and down. I mean, I, I didn’t like it. So obviously, they were they were hoisting me into a wheelchair, and then into a chair that was over the toilet. I could go to the toilet properly.
Clare Coffield 43:54
I had a catheter and oh my God, what a mess. But if I didn’t have any shoe about it. I would have been, I would have been crying every day. And that wasn’t going to help me.
Bill 44:06
Yeah. So how long before you got to the point where you were mobile?
Clare Coffield 44:13
Oh, no, not for quite a long time.
Clare Coffield 44:17
The hoist and the catheter and all of that went on for I can’t remember how long but it’s that seemed to me a long time if we’re talking about tober I would think. I don’t know.
Bill 44:29
Yeah, was it?
Clare Coffield 44:31
Well, it’s weeks, certainly weeks. And then I got a wheelchair nonelectric I wanted one of the electric circuits up there in the corner, but they didn’t give me one of those. So it was one of these manual ones. Yeah. And I was still a catheter and I was being wheeled past the swimming pool. And I thought I love swimming by Can I go swimming, you can go swimming.
Clare Coffield 44:57
There’s a catheter in clear you know. So you need To wait but that kind of gave me some impetus to say what can I do to get myself better so I can get this catheter and then get into the swimming pool? So finally that that’s happened and that was marvelous but still in the wheelchair, okay.
Clare Coffield 45:17
So then we went from on I must mention the therapies at this point because hydrotherapy is magnificent in supporting our muscles, and building confidence on the surface took a video of myself doing the backstroke. How did that happen? You know, but that was thrilling. So I was saving that term of family in the UK saying, hey, look, I can do it.
Bill 45:45
Yeah.
Clare Coffield 45:46
Because that made me feel that’s a normal thing to do.
Bill 45:50
Yeah, you celebrate the wins. You really not to celebrate the day.
Clare Coffield 45:53
Absolutely. So that that was a that was really thrilling being able to do that. I couldn’t walk on land. I could do the backstroke. Yeah, yeah. That was great.
Bill 46:03
It’s one way of getting around especially, you know, if you haven’t been mobile for a little while, I felt the same when I got into the pool to the hydrotherapy owl seems like our stories are very similar. And I just felt amazing when I got in there thinking Well, I’ve moved, you know, 30 meters and I haven’t fallen over and I have been concerned about falling. So it’s, you know, a really good experience. Yeah.
Clare Coffield 46:27
I’m still doing the hydrotherapy. Now, even though I’m home, and that’s twice a week and it’s fabulous. I feel so much better after every session.
Bill 46:37
Yeah. And then eventually you got out of the wheelchair. And did you get into a frame?
Clare Coffield 46:44
Yes, I was on a two-wheel frame, which I managed quite well with. And then they gave me a four-wheel frame all I was off then. So cuz it’s got a bit in the front. That’s it. A big hand handbag. So I love that. That was great. So I was freezing up there in the corridors with all my stuff in all books and stuff in this handbag thing in the front.
Clare Coffield 47:12
But quite honestly it was, each stage was exciting and I was actually able my muscles were able to do something new and I got really excited about that. And it’s a bit like a report card at school, although my report cards never said. Excellent. Yes. This one in the hospital was saying she has exceeded our expectations. I never got into that school.
Bill 47:43
I can relate. I can relate.
Bill 47:46
That’s hilarious, and I am, and then one day. Yeah. And then one day you rang me and you contacted me and somebody said something that may have that sentence have been really nasty. Well, at least the way that I experienced the conversation. And then made you feel real sort of really down and sort of concerned about yourself again and how you were going after having so much success. Tell me a little bit about what happened when you went to one of your appointments.
Clare Coffield 48:21
Yeah, that was so unfortunate. No, before that appointment, or to be fair, I’d had a fall. And I hadn’t, I hadn’t had any falls at all, but I had one up my son’s house, right in front of the grandchildren. Oh, oh, so I fell backward down some steps.
Clare Coffield 48:44
As I was walking along with them, of course, they were bursting into tears and I’m more concerned about them. I wasn’t physically hurt, but I was thinking Oh, no one answers them, you know, and the little one is only three immediately sat on the ground with our hands. over our eyes, streaming tears, and the other one runs to get her mom and then runs to her bed and pulls the covers over ahead. Oh my god, such a drama is terrible.
Clare Coffield 49:10
But they recovered from that much quicker than I did. It shattered my confidence in my physical ability. And I started to get depressed or hadn’t been depressed at all. I’d had some, you know, not great days, but mostly my mood was pretty good, and no anger, no depression at the beginning. And all of a sudden, I just felt that I lost it.
Clare Coffield 49:35
And so that was just before I met this doctor, back at the Austin, and my daughter-in-law, thankfully was able to come with me and she remembers the interview quite differently to me and I’ve sent her yes but when you’re hearing it was the patient is is quite different. And she’s a doctor. She can understand the terminology and So on.
Clare Coffield 50:02
But I just felt that this doctor was well, she did say to me, oh, you’re, you’re four months in, though, while you do know that the most recovery after the stroke happens in the first three months. And I thought, well, so what you’re telling me that this is it? You know, I walked in with my Forcefield frame quite slowly.
Clare Coffield 50:26
This is in February, I think our March and I thought she was saying to me, you’re not going to get any better. Right? So I absolutely, I was I was so frightened, then that was it. I wasn’t going to get any better. Um, and she said another thing to me about, this is a grieving process that you’re going through and you really have to grieve for your past life, that you you’re not going to get back again. That’s what I remember her saying,
Clare Coffield 51:01
Yeah, well have it the right words or not? That’s what I was left with. And I thought I’m not grieving. I haven’t died. Nobody’s grieving for me. I’m doing my best to get better. But quite honestly, what’s the point in doing all these therapies? If this is it, if there isn’t any more progress to be made?
Clare Coffield 51:23
Yeah. Now that I’m sure that’s not what she meant, ask the patient in a highly emotional Fred dial but a vulnerable state. That’s how I took it. So I’m sending lots of tears, lots of tears. My beautiful daughter-in-law, you know, sat with me afterward and said, but Clare, she doesn’t know you. She doesn’t know. And using my son’s words, she doesn’t know how feisty you are.
Clare Coffield 51:53
What progress you’ve made and what you’ve been through? She can read the notes but she doesn’t know you and quite often Honestly, the therapist would still be coming out if they didn’t think that we’re going to make any more progress.
Clare Coffield 52:06
So she helped to calm me down quite a bit. But that was a terrible experience Bill that was shattering. Yeah. So I had a short time of thinking, What’s the point in going on with this? Just given to this level of recovery? And that’s it. And then I thought, I don’t think so.
Bill 52:30
And I took you about a second.
Clare Coffield 52:33
Well, actually, what happened that day was with it being the Austin that’s where my daughter’s logical works. And that’s where the little ones that crash. So she said, Well, I go and get Heather from the crash. And I thought, Oh, I better contain myself. I better stop all this crying.
Clare Coffield 52:52
She came skipping along the corridor, and immediately my moods just went back to normal and this little one climbed up on my knees and kissed me Oh, hello, Grandma, and how are you today and all this kind of stuff. And immediately I thought, of course, there’s a point to all of this. So seeing that little, that little girl who is such a bubbly little creature, she is just wonderful.
Clare Coffield 53:19
How could you not feel good and not feel hopeful? Yeah, so that was an amazing day of our very lows, and then coming back to far more normal and feeling hopeful again, uh, luckily, when we went back to their house, and I was with the whole family that night, and that really encouraged me that there was a chance of making more improvements. Yeah. So maybe somebody’s telling me I can’t do something is what I need to hear. Because then I turn around and see, well watch this.
Bill 53:57
For you. That could be true, right but for others That might be devastating. So what we want to do is part of the message and we’re going to talk about it in the moment out of the message is don’t pay attention to other people. Well, do what you want to do, recover, focus on it, and go for it. I certainly didn’t get told, I don’t think anyone did to tell me I wasn’t going to recover or get better. But there was certainly a time where I questioned it, and I questioned it only because, you know,
Bill 54:28
I did have fallen over as well fallen over a few times, and it’s scary and I fell over broke plates, you know, drop glasses, you know, we have less cutlery in the home than we crockery than we used to have, you know, so I think it’s important for people to understand that well, they might hear something along those lines, and it’s just somebody else’s opinion. And we don’t really need to take it on board. Right.
Clare Coffield 54:52
Well, I do agree with you now, but at the time, and all the way through my hospitalization and the rescue. But I looked to the medical staff, and the nursing staff, and I wouldn’t have questioned anything that they told me. Because I have I don’t have any medical knowledge. And I have a great respect for them. And they were caring for me really well.
Clare Coffield 55:19
And it was just unfortunate for me that I can’t come up against this woman who had no idea how to talk to me as an individual. Yeah, I mean, maybe what she was seeing is general stuff for the average straw patient versus such a thing. Yeah, but I just didn’t feel it applied to me and that’s why it was so damaging for me.
Bill 55:41
And then at some point, you rang me? Why did you ring me Why did you decide to send me an email actually?
Clare Coffield 55:48
Haha.
Clare Coffield 55:50
Well, let’s go back a little bit. I think it was either the first or second day that I will call up after the stroke. It must be the second day because firstly, I just cried the whole day. Yeah. Because I woke up on the first day, and I couldn’t feel the right side of my body. But when my left leg bumped into my right leg, it felt like it had. It had balloons. It felt like the most enormous leg on the planet. And it was cold. It was heavy.
Clare Coffield 56:26
I couldn’t move it. I was terrified. Yeah, absolutely. So that’s why I was like such cried through that on the first day. Fair enough. The second day, I woke up at something Bill, though you and I don’t know each other that well. You met about twice before, over maybe 18 months. And something popped into my mind about a Facebook post that you’ve put up maybe about a year before.
Clare Coffield 56:53
I don’t know the timescale. And this Facebook post of yours was talking about when you were having your surgery in the hospital. And there was another patient who was swearing at his limb that wasn’t moving properly. And I think you told me later that he was saying, or you bastard, you that to his own arm, he was up. And he was angry.
Clare Coffield 57:18
And that was the language he was using himself and that you had talked to him about being gentle with himself. And the language that he was using was really powerful. Yeah. In a detrimental way. Yeah. If you could talk more kindly to himself that would help his recovery. Yeah.
Bill 57:38
And I asked him what his hand would be if it did what it wanted. Oh, and he told me that his hand would be his friend and he would call it his friend. Oh, so then I said to him, yeah, right. So it’s pretty cool to come from a boss that it would be a friend So I said to him, so why don’t you just pretend that your hand has already done what you wanted to do?
Bill 58:00
Pick up this empty toilet roll and move it from the left side of your body to the right side of your body pretended to have already done that and just call it your friend the next time you talk to it. Oh, and he looked down, they said, All right, friend, let’s go pick it up and put it over the other side. And you wouldn’t believe it.
Bill 58:18
Within a matter of seconds. His hand had responded and grabbed the cotton on this empty toilet roll that he couldn’t use. Like just a few seconds ago, this hand wasn’t working. And he picked it up and put it on the other side. And he was just gobsmacked. He was amazed that that happened. And I was pretty sure that something positive would happen.
Bill 58:41
But I wasn’t also certain that it would be that dramatic and all the physios that were around there. were just amazed that were going Wow, fantastic. Well done. And then he just continued the rest of the therapy by calling his hand his friend.
Clare Coffield 58:55
Well, I mean that that is just amazing. And that must have been what I Right back then I probably didn’t even make a comment on your post, but I remembered the post, right? And so when I woke up on the second morning that detail some of the detail, not all of it, but some of the detail came into my mind.
Clare Coffield 59:16
And I thought I’ve got to speak nicely to this race side of my body. So I was lifting the affected arm that was just like a floppy doll, lifting it with my left arm, and lifting up to my mouth, and I was kissing my arm. And I was saying, You are gorgeous, you’re lovely. I love you to bits helped me and I was talking all this nonsense out loud by me. In my bed, I couldn’t care less who was listening to me. So I’m lifting up and I’m kissing it.
Clare Coffield 59:51
And that made me laugh because I thought this must be ridiculous. I don’t care. And then I’ve developed that into one Thinking about my granddaughters? How do I talk to them? I mean, I just love them to bits. Why don’t I talk to the right side of my body, the way I would talk to my granddaughters? So that developed a whole strategy for me that I feel along with all, you know, the treatments and everything that I was getting and all this wonderful care that I was getting.
Clare Coffield 1:00:24
For me, that was very empowering that I was taking charge of the language I was using about myself. So the first time that they took me to physiotherapy in the wheelchair, the surface sets me to know, show me what movement you’ve got in your bad leg.
Clare Coffield 1:00:46
So I got my courage together. And I said, so I said, I don’t actually I don’t have a bad leg. I’ve got a landing leg. And she kind of looked at me as though it was crazy and she said Piper. I said, Well I just wanted to use some different language because when I was growing up, you know, the bad girl was pretty strong.
Clare Coffield 1:01:09
And I thought I’m not bad. Like, you know, it’s, that’s not the way I want it to be referred to. Yeah. So and then I said on the other legs, the supporting leg and so another roll of the eyes I’m sure you know, well if this is helping me, doesn’t matter what they think, and actually No it doesn’t.
Clare Coffield 1:01:37
So that went on for quite some time, and even when I came home, a physiotherapist that I’d never met before came out to my house in January. And she so she didn’t know me she didn’t know that my view on language.
Clare Coffield 1:01:55
So she got me to stand at the top of a ramp with my four Korean friends. frame and said, right, I’d like you to start with your back leg. So I, I was around so I pulled the, the, the frame back, you know, it’s kind of dramatic, pull it back, put the brakes on. And I turned to her and I said, if we’re going to be working together, could we come to an agreement about what language we use? And she looked at me.
Clare Coffield 1:02:31
Now she was not receptive to this at all. Not in the least. I don’t know if it was maybe she was an older woman, the other therapists were a lot younger, and maybe they were more open to different approaches. But this woman looked at me as though I was completely bonkers. And
Bill 1:02:53
how did she ever come across a feisty Scott before?
Clare Coffield 1:02:56
Well, shall not forget
Clare Coffield 1:03:00
I would love to know what notes she made when she got back to the office. But we came back into the lounge room. And she said I think it’s best that I arranged for a different physical therapist to come and see you next time. And I said, fabulous idea.
Clare Coffield 1:03:18
And she said I was just about to, she was drunk driving around that we’re drawing about which leg you use first when you’re going upstairs and which leg you use when you’re coming down steps. And she said, No, there’s a rhyme that we use about this in physiotherapy, but you don’t want to hear it. Oh. thinking, Oh, my God, well, it’s probably walking up to heaven and walking down to hell.
Clare Coffield 1:03:46
Something Awful like that. Yeah, right. And I thought, well, that’s great. I don’t want to hear it. Thank you very much. I can guess but you’re right. I do not want to hear all this negative stuff. Yeah. So she then sent another physical therapist who has been marvelous.
Clare Coffield 1:04:02
Anna has just been fantastic. So yeah, you’re absolutely right about what you were saying earlier, we have got to speak up, but you’ve got to have the confidence to do that. But if I hadn’t seen the improvement that I was making, by changing my language, I wouldn’t have been strong enough to
Clare Coffield 1:04:26
talk back basically. Talk up, talk up for me.
Bill 1:04:30
Yeah, cuz you weren’t being rude. You were just letting her know what you needed. And that’s what therapy shouldn’t be about. It should be about what the specific patient needs, not what the therapist thinks they should. They should do that.
Clare Coffield 1:04:44
Well, I would think are not uncommon for a lot of patients where they just accept anything and everything that they’re told because they’re so vulnerable. Yeah, certainly how I felt to begin was incredibly vulnerable and grateful for any assistance. any help? Yeah. So it’s a difficult one too, for people to accept that we should be talking up.
Clare Coffield 1:05:10
And that was a great thing I meant to say when my daughter-in-law came with me to consultations, to have someone there with me, who is more than capable for me, because we would discuss beforehand, the things I wanted to see. And if I forgot any of them, she would chip in. And I must say, I mean over other patients, take somebody with you. Yeah, that loves you and wants the best for you. But we’ll be strong enough to speak out.
Bill 1:05:39
Yeah, that’s really good advice. I couldn’t agree more. Now we are I could speak to you forever because this is my favorite topic. It’s my favorite topic. But also, I think it’s really important. Now we’re coming to the end of the episode and I want to make sure that we touch on where you’re at now because you went from conveying completely paralyzed to the left side to a wheelchair to a frame which sort of got you into the pool and hydrotherapy and all that type of stuff.
Bill 1:06:14
And you’ll slowly start to get better and better and better. Where are you now?
Clare Coffield 1:06:20
Okay. So, exactly a week ago, I made a decision but I was going to try and walk without the walking frame. Now my physiotherapist had practiced this with me. So that when she comes out, we weren’t taking the frame. She was walking beside me. So she was saying to me, you’re managing very well, Claire, I want you to try and do just a short distance on your own.
Clare Coffield 1:06:54
Before I see you next, I thought, Oh, fantastic. Let’s go for this. That’s a great Challenge. And obviously, I chose somewhere exactly straight outside my host firm familiar with in daylight, it’s not raining and, you know, taking care of all the possible hazards. So I went out on the first day now, luckily, I’ve got a Fitbit.
Clare Coffield 1:07:18
So I measured the number of steps and something like 549 steps. And I and I came back to those groups. It all Yeah, I think is that. So in the first week, I went from 549. Let’s call it 600. I went from that to 3000 steps one day. Yeah. And then the best day was 6000 steps. And the average was about four or seven steps with a total of 23,000 in that week, and you have no idea. It’s like a whole new chapter has started.
Clare Coffield 1:07:57
Yeah, and it’s thrilling, it’s liberating. I am elated when I’m doing this, I’m so happy that I can, I guess, obviously, you can see the improvements. And yes, I’m still a bit wobbly. And you know, it’s not perfect walking by any means. Yeah, it’s a bit like when the grandkids play it being robots. It’s a bit like that. Yeah. But it’s not having to use the walking train is fantastic.
Clare Coffield 1:08:28
But quite honestly, one of the biggest things that I’ve used from very early on and certainly every day now as well as visualizing doing what it is I want to do. So it’s, before I go for a walk, I actually sit and think about it for a couple of minutes, but in my head, I can see myself walking along the street with very confident walk and saying hello to people. Hearing the birds.
Clare Coffield 1:08:58
The sun’s out a number in Australia. Pretty good chance it’s going to be good whether I’m going somewhere Who am I going to meet? And when I visualize that in advance, when I then get to do it, I think my body says, Okay, I recognize this pattern. We’ve done it already in your heads. Let’s do it again physically in real life. And that was goal-setting coaching. Given the night that I had my shock.
Bill 1:09:36
Yeah. Wow, that’s amazing. So you know what’s actually happening when you visualize something? Yeah, you probably know, but for the benefit of our listeners, it actually fires off the same part of the brain, as if you were actually walking as if you were actually doing those tasks, which means that the reason why it wasn’t why familiar and not unfamiliar, always because the brain has already done that.
Bill 1:10:04
And it’s already been there. And it’s kind of like just a deja vu moment and it’s happening again. And because it’s experienced at once you don’t have the anxiety that comes with stepping out on your own and doing things without the frame for the first time. And then it’s a gentler, easier way to approach it.
Bill 1:10:22
So, people that are listening, if they look up different visualization techniques, they will find a lot of help a lot of benefits will also help people that are trying to pick up and get moving in their hand again and, you know, pick up a glass and bring it to the mouth also help with that type of thing. And it starts with the reconnecting of brain cells.
Bill 1:10:44
And it starts that healing process and that re so remembering allows the brain to remember what it was that I used to do in the past without thinking about it in the past.
Clare Coffield 1:10:57
Isn’t it wonderful though, that our brains are so Clever, much smarter than I ever thought I was that you know, by thinking about it, but really believing, not just believing it’s just going through the motions, but in my head, all the feelings of being excited about it and looking forward to who it was I was going to meet or, you know, whatever it was that I was going to do that then you stand up and you start walking and your body does it for you?
Bill 1:11:27
Yeah,
Clare Coffield 1:11:27
I think it’s, it’s miraculous, it really is that the power of our minds is just, it just blows me away. It’s, it’s helped me enormously.
Bill 1:11:37
So you and I, two of the lucky ones in that, you know, we did have a lot of challenges. We had to overcome a lot of things. What do you say to somebody who’s just perhaps coming across this and one of their loved ones has experienced a stroke or somebody was I they’ve experienced a stroke or somebody that you know, that they come across later on in their life may have expensive What do you say to people about it now?
Clare Coffield 1:12:05
Well, what I’m saying to people these days is that it’s not a disaster. It needn’t be a disaster. Because I’ve had other people who want to take the medication, one do the physio. And guess what, they’re still in a wheelchair.
Clare Coffield 1:12:22
Now, I know, I’ve got no medical knowledge. But it just seems to me that it’s not a coincidence that the people are reaching other people who are making good recoveries as well. The people that are saying, I’m going to really put all my energy into this. I mean, this is my job, no bill to get myself better.
Clare Coffield 1:12:41
This is my full-time job every day. What can I do to get myself better? So that yes, all the medical teams and therapists and friends and family and everybody that is a big part of this, there’s also a part where I’ve got to take responsible For how this turns out, or what progress I can make in a, if my brain is part of this whole process that can help me, then, you know, we’ve got so much strength inside us.
Clare Coffield 1:13:17
If we can tap into that, then all the other people all the other, we take the burden off all these other people, especially family by saying, I’m taking responsibility for my progress, please help me with this, this, and this. But see this thing about being motivated and, you know, changing my eating and drinking and you know, all of those things.
Clare Coffield 1:13:42
I’m in control of that. Yeah. That is very empowering. But I really do think it lets our families and our loved ones off the hook that they’ve got to do absolutely everything for us. So what I changed from the woman who had a husband that I thought he had He was my everything. Hmm, you know what I changed in 20 years? That’s, you know, it’s, it’s my responsibility.
Bill 1:14:11
Yeah. And you can do a lot towards, you know, supporting yourself and recovering and healing yourself. And you can do what you can. And I felt the same thing. I needed to have some control. And not that I’m a control freak, but I needed to be able to feel like it wasn’t up to everybody else. And my parents and my family and my wife and my kids and the doctors on it to feel like I could do something.
Bill 1:14:33
And what I did is what I could do is what I could do I did visualizations meditation. I did all the physio that I needed to do. I paid attention to everybody and took the medication that I needed to take, knowing that I was only going to take it temporarily. Yeah, and I changed the food and the food has been my biggest sort of opportunity to heal really well because I’m not putting junk in my body which interferes with healing.
Bill 1:14:58
So That is another topic though, for a different podcast that could go on, we could go on that one for another hour. Clear. Thank you so much for spending some time with me. I really appreciate you sharing your story because a lot of people are going to benefit from this. If somebody wanted to find you online and get in contact with you, how would they go about that? Where would you ask them to go and look online?
Clare Coffield 1:15:23
I think I would be happy for people to use my private email address, which is [email protected]. Just a very simple email address. And you know, anyone that wants some information or anything I could do to help them I’ll be more than happy because I do feel that I shouldn’t keep this information to myself, and if anyone can benefit from it, either a character or another stroke, patients,
Clare Coffield 1:16:00
Or, you know, anyone that just feels they need a bit of support? I’d be more than happy to do that. Because Bill, you’ve helped me so much. And I think that’s for me, that’s karma. That’s certainly what I believe in these days what goes around comes around. And the more you give out and help other people, you know, the better you know, in life is,
Bill 1:16:22
Yeah, well, they, if they get in contact with you, they’ll probably get a two-for-one deal, or they’ll probably somehow end up getting me as well. So whoever wants to find out about stroke or how to recover how to heal from stroke, you know how to approach stroke. It doesn’t have to be a terrible outcome. It can be life-changing, for sure.
Bill 1:16:42
But it can be also something that we can get better from, and we want to encourage people that are going through it or have been through it, so that we can all support each other to get through it somehow and make a difference. So Clare, Thanks again so much for your time. I really do. Appreciate it. And I look forward to keeping in touch with you and continuing to find out about how your healing and your recovery are going.
Clare Coffield 1:17:08
Oh, that’s marvelous. I really enjoyed that bill. Thanks very much.
Bill 1:17:12
You’re welcome, Clare. All the best now.
Clare Coffield 1:17:14
Bye, bye.
Bill 1:17:17
Well, if you liked that episode, go ahead and share it. I’m sure there are people out there in the community that are either going through a stroke or have had somebody go through a stroke that would really benefit from hearing this episode. So just jump on Facebook, or wherever you found this podcast, copy the link, say a little bit about it, and just get others in your community.
Bill 1:17:41
The opportunity to listen and learn from my experience and Clare’s experience in recovering from a stroke. If you want to know more about me, and if you want to find out what it is that I do to help people recover from stroke and any other challenge in life, you can go to recoveryafterstroke.com. Check out the links there and check out my page. And if you want to get in touch, just fill out the contact form, and I’ll be in touch. Until next time, thanks for listening.
Intro 1:18:14
The presenters and special guests of this podcast intend to provide accurate and helpful information to their listeners. These podcasts can not take into consideration individual circumstances and are not intended to be a substitute for independent medical advice from a qualified health professional.
Intro 1:18:32
You should always seek advice from a qualified health professional before acting on any of the information provided by any of Tthe Recovery After Stroke podcasts. This has been a production of https://recoveryafterstroke.com/ check out our page on Facebook and start a conversation by leaving a comment at https://www.instagram.com/recoveryafterstroke/ Subscribe to the show on iTunes and check us out on Twitter.
