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As we come to the final presentation of this program, we want to bring the discussion back to the patient experience. Throughout today's session, we've explored evidence-based strategies, emerging science, and multidisciplinary approaches to secondary stroke prevention. To close, we are honored to hear directly from a stroke survivor who will share what recovery and long-term prevention looks like beyond the clinical setting. Thank you so much, Gerald, for being here with us today and for being willing to share your experience. Thank you. Uh, Gerald, could you briefly share what happened when you had your stroke and what the first few months of recovery were like for you, including your time in rehabilitation? Well, I was sitting on the edge of my bed at home and I slipped off the edge of the bed down onto the carpet, and then I found I couldn't get up from the floor and my son recognized what was going on and he called an ambulance and got me to hospital. Uh, I had been suffering under a great deal of stress because my wife had been diagnosed with, uh, terminal cancer. And we'd been doing a lot of traveling to hospitals, uh, near and far for treatment, and things were getting on top of me and I was, there was a lot of fatigue as well. So I think the stress buildup might have been part of it. I should mention that I am in full remission from non-Hodgkin's lymphoma. I had uh chemo treatment, or CHP treatment for that some years ago. And I also have aortic stenosis, but not sufficiently troublesome that my cardiologist wants to pop a new valve in. So these are all sorts of background things that I think are, are worth taking on board because it was something that I had to share with my medical team after the stroke was my full medical condition. So I slid off the bed and uh they got me into the hospital, but uh I had left side paralysis, uh, arm, hand, and uh leg. And uh to, to transfer in the hospital between bed and bathroom, I had to use a device called the Sara Steady, which uh allowed me to stand up and sit down into this device and be wheeled wherever they wanted to take me. So, uh, that, that was OK. But uh there was a degree of shock when they asked me to do certain tests because a classic test is making a fist. And when I couldn't make a fist with my left hand, in fact, couldn't move the fingers of the left hand, that gave me quite a shock. And I think one learning from this is that it might be useful that the medical profession uh sort of say, well, this is normal, this is, we understand what this is, this, you know, a little more explanation around it. The same with touching the nose, touching the ear, and the movements generally. So, uh, uh, you know, I, I was a bit shocked by what I couldn't do rather than anything else, uh, through the tests. However, the, the, the nice thing was that they, when they tested for nerve sensation at the extremities on the fingers and the toes and the hands and the feet. I got good news and, and my stroke consultant said you've got good nerve reaction at the extremity, he says there's a, a chance of a good recovery. So that was good news. Uh, so that was the sort of initial phase going in, and that was, I spent 3 weeks in, in the hospital in Waterford before they transferred me to a rehabilitation unit. Thank you for sharing that. It's definitely not, not an easy period you got through, and it's a powerful reminder of how much happened in those early months and how central um communication and rehabilitation is to recovery. When you were preparing to leave the hospital or rehab facility, how was the idea of preventing another stroke explained to you and what did you understand at the time? Well, you see, I don't think I, I ever had that discussion about preventing another stroke. I trusted that the medication I've been prescribed and was on in hospital and in rehab was actually doing that prevention work, you know, there was a, there was uh blood, there was aspirin for blood thinning and there was a Uh, something to control the, uh, Cholesterol and so on. And I know that there's a terribly difficult balance between making the blood too thin and too thick because one, you don't want the clot at one extremity, and then you don't want to bleed at the other extremity. So that was sort of explained to me, but I, I had to, I had to place a lot of trust in my medical team that uh that was uh, and, and I, you know, in coming home, I'm on the same medication that I was on when I left the rehab ward, so. I, I'm fairly confident that I'm being looked after in that sense. The other thing, of course, is that I'm, I'm managing my own stress condition, having been pretty convinced that that was something to do with it. However, I should just mention here, and perhaps it's something useful, that in on a follow-up visit with my consultant. Uh, when I first went in the hospital, I'd had a CT scan and they, uh, identified the clot on the right-hand side of the brain that was affecting the left-hand side, uh, motions. But, uh, I then subsequently got an MRI scan, and that showed something at the back of the head. And, uh, my stroke consultant said that these two areas are fed by different blood vessels. And he thinks that something may have happened in the upper chamber of the heart that pumped something up towards the head. And he's looking to put me on a 5-day heart monitor. That hasn't happened yet. But uh he's trying to get to, shall we say, the root causes, not just the stroke itself, but what led up to it, uh, medically. Yeah, I, I think it's an important point, and I think that the problem is a lot of people think that strokes are just strokes. They don't realize that there's the two types. There's the bleed and there's the clot, the escatic that I had, and, and uh I could have had a worse situation. Uh, now, my condition, apart from the left side paralysis, I had no, none of my senses were affected. My intellect is still working. And uh I was very, very lucky for, by the type of stroke I had and also the speed at which I was got into hospital. You mentioned that transition from structured care to managing things at home, and it really is a critical moment for patients. So when you start taking medication at home, you've already mentioned about the balance between, you know, your blood being not too thick, not too thin. But were there any other concerns, side effects, bleeding risks, even the number of medication or costs that stood out most for you? Well, there's no problem with cost for it because our health system here for patients in my condition, they give us free, uh, medications and, and, and everything's free. I don't have to worry about that. The one thing that I noticed in the hospital and I was getting additional medication for was to fight against the uh effects of the drugs giving me constipation. I'm on lactulose for that, and I still am. And I, I know jolly well that if I don't take that, I'll have trouble. So I, I'm conscious of that if you like. That was the one thing that stood out for me. We'd, we'd experimented with dosage strengths and everything in hospital to get the balance of that right as well. So that, that, that, that was uh the, the major side effect uh. For me, uh, But no, no other concerns. I have a little box that I can put my meds in for morning and evening, 7 days of the week. And that's in itself is an occupational therapy exercise, popping the pills out of the, the packs and uh putting them in the uh in the tray, so that's OK, that's OK. Yeah. OK. And uh those concerns you mentioned, they also come up frequently in clinical practice. So it's really, really important for us to hear how they feel from patient's perspective. Thank you for sharing that. Uh, what has helped you stay on track with your medications? Well, you already mentioned that you do use a box to track that. Um, so besides that, what helped you to stay on track with medications? Regular contact with my general practitioner, uh, my, my, my family doctor. Uh, he's keeping a, a once a month check on me. And then I have the, uh, consultation visits to my stroke consultant. I can also phone the, uh, nurses in the rehab hospital. So I'm getting a lot of.