Every year in the UK an estimated 150,000 people suffer a stroke. It is the third most common cause of death in the country and is also the most common cause of severe disability. Emma Grove talks to one woman who was taken ill without any warning signs ...

On April 9, 2006, when Barbara Coster was 71, she suffered a stroke. She fell into a coma and was in hospital until the end of July.

Although the only signs Barbara has of her ordeal is that she is a little bit forgetful and gets tired, it was a long road to recovery.

Barbara lives in Scarborough Drive, Minster, with her husband George, 71.
She can’t remember a lot of what happened before and after the stroke and what she does know she was told by George.

It was in the morning when Barbara, a great-grandmother of four, said she felt very tired and was going to stay in bed.

George popped out to go fishing, and when he returned his wife had been taken to hospital in an ambulance.

She was in a coma for about three weeks, during which time she had an operation because she was bleeding on the brain, which was causing her to have seizures.

She said the surgeon told George he had to operate or there would be no hope.

When she finally came round she had to learn to talk, swallow, eat and move again.

Her whole left side was paralysed – she couldn’t move her left arm or leg.

She was fed through a tube before she had learnt to eat again and she had physiotherapy and speech therapy.

Barbara, who is now 74, said: “It was very slow when I woke up – at first I just opened my eyes a couple of times and I couldn’t move at all.

“I can’t remember my family coming to see me in hospital – they were very worried.”

When Barbara was ready to start learning to walk again, the nurses asked her how she wanted to leave hospital – in a wheelchair or with a stick.

“I said I wanted to walk out of hospital.

“The nurse promised she would get me walking and she did. I worked very hard.

Barbara doesn’t know why she had the stroke, she has never had high blood pressure, but she explained that sometimes people have a weak vein in their head and it’s waiting to burst.

She said: “I don’t know why it happened – there’s nothing that causes it.”

Barbara thinks she has been very lucky in how well she has recovered and although she sometimes gets frustrated when she can’t do something, she knows it takes time.

She added: “I have still got problems, I forget things, silly little things like if we are shopping sometimes I turn the wrong way out of the shop and forget what I was doing but I’m very lucky – I had marvellous physio.”

Barbara admitted before her stroke she wasn’t a very sociable person and at school wasn’t very athletic, but since she has got better she has joined a gym and also regularly meets other members of the Medway Stroke Association.

Stroke facts and figures:

• In 2005-07, 67 people under the age of 75 in Swale died from having a stroke.
• A stroke is a brain injury which happens when the blood supply to the brain is cut off.
• Paralysis can occur because the brain controls everything the body does and affects body functions.
• More than 80 per cent of strokes are caused by a clot which blocks an artery that carries blood to the brain.
• The other cause is a bleed – when a blood vessel bursts which causes a haemorrhage to the brain.
• Common symptoms of a stroke can include numbness or weakness, slurred speech, sudden blurred vision or loss of sight and confusion or unsteadiness.
• Source: The Stroke Association