I Thought It Was Migraines…

Added: 2026-05-24

[00:00:08]Mic test. One, two.

[00:00:13]Can you hear me?

[00:00:16]For months, I was told I just had migraines. But deep down, I knew there was a bigger story. I couldn't explain it. My intuition just told me this was a warning. Over time, my thoughts felt slower. I started forgetting who I was.

[00:00:34]My body felt out of control. And it started with no pain at all. The first sign was just a bright, jagged shape in my eye. And then came the pain.

[00:00:47]This video contains discussions of health, medical experiences, and anxiety that some viewers may find sensitive.

[00:00:54]I'm sharing my experience to raise awareness, not to give medical advice.

[00:00:58]Everyone's situation is different and if you're worried about symptoms or your health, please speak to a qualified medical professional. Oh my goodness, it has been such a long time since I've hit the record button. At the moment, I'm keeping it quite lowkey, so I'm filming on my mobile, but I just wanted to jump on and make this video all about myself.

[00:01:23]Sorry, Justina, but I thought that the topic that I'm going to be talking about today is extremely important because I never imagined that what happened to me would ever happen at my age. But instead of me just standing here talking to you guys from the comfort of my bedroom, let's head outside. It's a beautiful day today.

[00:01:52]So, just about to enter my favorite park here, and it's called Bella Houston Park. So, let me go and find a nice spot just to kind of talk and go through part one of my journey. I don't know how many parts there are, but there's a lot to discuss.

[00:02:12]Just squaltching my way through the mud here. You can see it's rained so much, but look where I am. Totally worth it.

[00:02:19]Woo.

[00:02:21]I'm just being silly now. Let's go.

[00:02:27]So, I've committed now. I've got my feet buried in like an inch of mud. I'm going to put my hood up because it's extremely windy, but I haven't figured out how to connect the mic to this Osmo Action. And also, the landscapers have decided to now cut the grass. So, I'm really feeling that kind of stress of recording a video for YouTube. It's all coming back to me.

[00:02:59]So, let me just start at the beginning of my health journey. One of the first symptoms that I recognized where there was just something not right with me was that I had a pain above my right eye. So after 6 weeks, boom, boom, boom, above my right eye every day, four times a day, I finally got an appointment with my local GP. And the outcome of that was basically she was worried that I might have MS, multiple sclerosis, or potentially could be a tumor like brain cancer.

[00:03:38]And I don't know whether that's common practice, but to be told that without testing, it was a horrible place to be in. My health anxiety just went from baseline to oh my I just feel like you should never guess what it could be until you go down a line of examination and investigation.

[00:04:03]January 2025, I went to Queen Elizabeth Hospital and had a CAT scan done. I waited for about two weeks. From that, it came out to be that I don't have any of those things. So, on one hand, I was really relieved because I didn't have those issues, but on the other hand, I still had this head pain every single day, and I didn't know where to go from there. So, I think I'm going to move to a different spot and kind of talk you through part two. I don't know how many parts there will be, but it has been an insane journey.

[00:04:46]Oh my god, the wind.

[00:05:00]It's so funny to me that this morning I did a shampoo and conditioner of my curls. I wanted it to look so cute on camera, but coming out in the wind, I mean, what is going on here? So, I'm just walking up these steps here towards a gorgeous viewpoint of Bella Houston Park. And during the springtime, these trees blossom into the most gorgeous cherry blossom trees you've ever seen.

[00:05:24]If I have a picture from a previous year, I'll insert it now. Absolutely. 10 out of 10.

[00:05:38]Hopefully coming into these woods will shield me a bit from the wind.

[00:05:43]That's already a little bit better.

[00:05:54]Okay, we're in the woods now. My mic on.

[00:05:59]Going to have to put my jacket up because it's still absolutely freezing.

[00:06:04]Cannot film my fingertips.

[00:06:07]But here is chapter 2. And specifically, I want to talk about April 15th.

[00:06:14]This is when things really started to ramp up for me. I think I'm going to put my head up because my hair is really annoying me as well. But before I start talking about April 15th, I want to talk about the leadup to that particular day.

[00:06:29]And that was basically me still enduring these head pains in my head three, four times a day, but not really coming to any resolution as to what that was.

[00:06:40]basically just living with this chronic pain at this point and just feeling like I recognized myself less and less by the day. So from January until April, I was just basically navigating life the best way that I could with the tools that I had. So in the leadup to April 15th, me and Justina were looking after a cat called Tootszie. We were petsitting somewhere in the south side of Glasgow and it was the day before the 15th where Tootsie the cat got run over by a car.

[00:07:14]It had absolutely nothing to do with us.

[00:07:17]She was an outdoor cat and by the way she's absolutely fine. She was put on strict cage rest and is no longer an outdoor cat. And that situation was kind of like foreshadowing to how dramatic and chaotic life would become the following day. So the morning of April 15th with Tootsie downstairs in her cage. I woke up that day. I had called in sick to work. I felt absolutely horrendous. I woke up from my nap.

[00:07:49]Within the first couple of minutes, the pain that I was experiencing this entire time literally started from there and spread all over my head. And it was the most intense pain I've ever experienced.

[00:08:05]All of these kind of daily head pains led up to this kind of mega mega head pain. It was excruciating.

[00:08:14]So, I looked at myself in my phone's camera, and I recognized in my face that my face was slightly drooped. It wasn't too prominent, but it was a slight drop on one side, but it was enough with the head pain for me to call up 111. And it was enough for them to send out a paramedic straight away. So, upon hearing that the paramedics were on their way, I had to get out of bed. And when I started to walk, I noticed that my body was magnetized to the right. I kept knocking into the wardrobe.

[00:08:56]>> Not only that, but I felt a wave of nausea.

[00:09:00]>> Oh, I feel sick.

[00:09:02]>> So, I no longer had the head pain, but I was wanting to throw up.

[00:09:07]>> And I was getting more scared by the minute. I don't know how to get downstairs. Really scared me to be honest.

[00:09:16]>> I don't know how to walk.

[00:09:19]>> So, I managed to get down to the ground floor and I weakly open the door to the paramedic. And again, I'm still like magnetized to the right hand side. So, I'm leaning against the wall kind of like this unable to put myself upright.

[00:09:35]Hopefully, I'm in the frame just now doing that. She checks my vitals, my blood pressure, and my heart rate, and they're okay. Hello.

[00:09:44]Hello. Hi, cuties. What a lovely surprise.

[00:09:50]>> So cute. Hello. Just doing a video.

[00:09:55]>> Oh, no problem at all. Great addition.

[00:10:00]You're buddies.

[00:10:06]That was actually really cute because it was such a heavy subject. So yeah, I really like that. So she checks my blood pressure and my heart rate and they seem to be normal. And she says, "This doesn't look like a stroke, but what this could be is a very severe migraine." And so I'm just taking this all in, but I'm also throwing up into this bag that she's just given me. And in the back of my mind, I'm thinking whatever just happened here was not normal at all. And this day plays such an important part in my story because this is the day where everything started to go downhill for me. From this moment on, nothing got better. Only everything became worse. And this is where I'm going to end this chapter and go into chapter 3.

[00:11:08]Maybe that was just a migraine and maybe that visual aura was the warning. But from April 2025, things started to change. The symptoms never fully left. The pain in my head persisted and started waking me up at night. And then new symptoms came.

[00:11:30]Temporary loss of speech. A deep pain developed in my calf, leaving me walking with a limp. And then heart palpitations contributing to my nervous system being completely overwhelmed. It honestly felt like my body was shutting down. But for months, I kept taking my migraine medication with my neurological symptoms worsening by the day. Deep down, I felt like I was getting worse. The real warning, like I was waiting for something big to happen.

[00:12:19]So hopefully this is a nice quiet spot inside Pollock Park where I can talk about the most intense chapter of this story. So, April happened and I had that really severe migraine.

[00:12:33]And then from April until July, I was just experiencing the same kind of niggles, lots of neurological problems.

[00:12:44]It all came to a head. Yeah. July 21st.

[00:12:46]Basically, it was a regular day at the office and I went to the gym after work like I always would. I was running on the treadmill and everything was fine. 5 minutes in, I started to drool. And yes, that was just very bizarre. But I kept going because I was in a rhythm. And so I just kept wiping the kind of spit away from the leftand corner of my mouth.

[00:13:14]Then it got to a point where it was really uncomfortable. So I stopped and then I go and proceed to the chest machine cuz I have to do my chest. I have to do my shoulders. That's just part of my gym routine. And so between sets, I'm noticing that the drool is just constant. And so I start spitting into the tissue. It's disgusting at this point. That still doesn't stop me. And it's funny to look back on now because there was no reason why I should have been drooling at the gym, but I was starting to feel really uncomfortable.

[00:13:51]So coincidentally after the gym I was meant to meet Justina at a private hospital where two weeks prior I had a MRI done because I wasn't getting anywhere with my amatipptalene pills. I was still having the same head pain. So that evening I was due to go to the hospital to discuss my results. So I proceeded to go and wait at the bus stop outside of the gym. When I told the bus driver where I was to go, I noticed that my voice and my speech was slurring and I couldn't quite speak clearly. I couldn't get the words out of my mouth and I also was trying to drink a protein shake and that was becoming increasingly difficult. So, I was trying to drink and there was like a resistance in my throat and so I was spitting out the protein shake, like kind of spluttering it out, coughing it out. And so, that was a bit of a weird sensation, but at that point, I still really didn't know what was going on with me. I just knew that something wasn't quite right, and it was getting worse.

[00:15:14]I just might need to change this a bit.

[00:15:17]Need to attach my power bank. So, let me just take this off a sec. Little break.

[00:15:21]It's like, okay, go to the hospital.

[00:15:23]They can see me over. Oh my god.

[00:15:27]>> I'm currently on the way to hospital and for the last hour I've been I can't speak properly. I tried to I tried to go on the bus and he was talking to me but I couldn't really reply.

[00:15:49]I'm just I just stopped briefly just just to spit out the excess all over in my mouth. I don't know what this is. I haven't experienced this before.

[00:16:11]So clearly something was not right. I meet Justina outside the hospital and she takes one look at me and she's like, "Miesa, what's wrong with your face?" I was like, "What are you on about?" I hadn't even looked at my face since entering the gym and seeing Justina.

[00:16:28]>> I say something.

[00:16:30]>> What do you want me to say?

[00:16:31]>> Oh my. How do you feel?

[00:16:33]>> Not very well. Do you feel numbness?

[00:16:36]>> I can't speak properly.

[00:16:37]>> Yeah, it looks like your right side is is more open than the left side.

[00:16:42]>> What do you mean open?

[00:16:44]>> Like >> my eyes?

[00:16:45]>> No, with your mouth. Try and smile. Try and smile.

[00:16:49]>> Uh-huh.

[00:16:50]>> Oh my god. Yeah.

[00:16:52]>> What? What?

[00:16:53]>> You're just smiling with one side.

[00:16:54]>> It's hard to speak. Yeah.

[00:16:56]>> I've been drooling for an hour now.

[00:16:59]>> Drool is just constantly coming down my my chin.

[00:17:02]>> Oh my god. has something to do with it.

[00:17:04]It probably >> I don't know. I haven't got a headache, but >> yeah, it's really not great.

[00:17:09]>> My face has now drooped. And to be honest, it was probably drooped throughout my entire gym session, but because I hadn't looked at myself, I just literally did not notice. So, when I go inside the hospital, I express my concern. My face is drooped on the left hand side. I'm drooling. I can't speak properly.

[00:17:32]and I can't swallow.

[00:17:34]So, I go in and have my vitals done.

[00:17:38]Blood pressure is slightly elevated, but they suspect that it's because I'm stressed because of what's going on.

[00:17:46]>> I feel numb lazy tongue, but no migraine.

[00:17:51]Speaking makes me feel breathless. It's been like this for an hour.

[00:17:55]>> So, after half an hour, we go upstairs.

[00:17:58]I speak with my neurologist to discuss my MRI results and it's really not even to discuss this current moment, the situation that I find myself in. He even says the words, "You seem to be getting better now." And his diagnosis is that I'm having a severe migraine attack again, which was similar to what happened in April. So, he really doesn't express any concern. He also talked about some of my MRI results. There was an area on my preffrontal cortex which is here which had a lesion on it.

[00:18:37]>> As we go down, this is the front of the brain. This is the back. This is the right side. This is the left side. You can see this kind of brighter area here.

[00:18:46]It appears here that there's kind of an underly part of the brain. Not as much tissue or dark here as there is here. Um that's the abnormality. head is in an area that could explain, you know, the the facial weakness that may be a trigger for these headaches as well.

[00:19:03]>> And he was able to show me the area of which that was affected and he seemed to believe that maybe I had a brain injury in the past or that I have an underdeveloped brain which is a bit random. The cause of that just not developed at all.

[00:19:27]>> Yeah.

[00:19:29]>> I finish up with my consultation. Brain injury, underdeveloped brain, but still need further CAT scans. Not one single word was muttered. A word which should have been muttered at that moment because everything started to feel like it aligned to what was actually happening. And I will get there. And probably those watching will even know what I'm going to say of what this was, what was happening to me. But he did say that if I was to wake up in the morning and my face, my drooling, my speech is the same to call up 111. I think it was 111. But I didn't really have to wait that long to get answers because I woke up that following morning and my face was the same. Day two of being paralyzed in my face. This is not moving. Well, I can move my eyelids, but I can't move my mouth.

[00:20:36]I can't smell.

[00:20:41]and it's hard to speak.

[00:20:45]So, I'm going to go to the walking center today cuz it's been about like 11 hours. So, when I woke up, first thing I did was call 111. Within 15 minutes, the paramedics were at my apartment and basically taking me to Queen Elizabeth Hospital in Glasgow.

[00:21:19]Right. Just a deep breath now.

[00:21:25]It's so weird to go back on these memories actually. So that's since November. So December, January, February, March, April, May, June, July.

[00:21:33]And finally, I'm being treated with some urgency. I was getting CAT scans done within like half an hour of being there, but they don't talk to me about the results. Yes, there was a lesion there.

[00:21:47]They still need to deliberate amongst each other. So, I was just upstairs in the ward for 3 days. Justina came and visited.

[00:21:55]>> Welcome to my new room here on 6A ward 6A.

[00:22:00]>> But I had no idea why I was at the hospital, what had happened. I was still under the impression that I had a severe migraine and that migraine has led me into this hospital. After 3 days, finally someone says something to me which made an explanation as to everything that had happened up to this point. On the CAT scan, they located a blood clot on my brain and also a second blood clot in my neck. And those two blood clots have caused me to have a stroke.

[00:22:42]Yeah. So, basically, I had a stroke and wait a second.

[00:23:00]So the MRI I had before, the lesion they saw, that wasn't under development and it wasn't an old brain injury. It was a stroke.

[00:23:12]And that pain in my calf was suspected deep vein thrombosis, a blood clot in my leg that likely broke free, traveling upward through my bloodstream towards my heart. But my heart had vulnerabilities.

[00:23:27]Two congenital heart conditions I'd been born with. One of them was something one in four adults have without ever knowing. a PFO, a hole in the heart, a patent forman ov valve. And through that hole, blood clots could bypass the lungs filtering system, traveling through my heart, up through my neck, through the carottoid artery until blood flow became blocked, an ice schemic stroke.

[00:23:58]Everything aligned to create the perfect storm. Two strokes on two separate occasions. and that constant pain in my head. It wasn't just migraines. It was my body screaming warnings the entire time. Underlying clots, undiagnosed heart conditions, and a nervous system pushed far beyond its limit. Everything aligned, leading to two strokes and even a mini one whilst I was in the hospital.

[00:24:29]The signs were there. Why didn't they notice sooner?

[00:24:34]Sweet testing my speech. What's wrong with my life?

[00:25:01]I knew intuitively that something was not right with me and unfortunately I just wasn't led down the right path.

[00:25:14]Young people have strokes too. When I had a stroke I was 36 years old. I turned 37 in November but I was still 36.

[00:25:29]There's so much that happened that it's difficult to recount everything. I didn't even put the combination of all of the symptoms with the stroke.

[00:25:41]I just knew that I was still suffering with all of these different issues, but I didn't understand that stroke meant brain damage.

[00:25:53]the blood clot that was stuck in my brain. What that did is it started to kill off my brain cells because it was dying essentially. But in that moment, stroke was just this word. It wasn't a loaded word. It was just a word. I never knew that that was the connection. So because I had brain damage in that part of my brain, it basically led to me not being able to do these things properly anymore. That part of my brain had essentially died.

[00:26:32]It was probably more after I left the hospital where I came to that realization. The whole time in the hospital, I was pretty much focused on getting these faculties to be able to come back to normal again.

[00:26:52]>> It is a bit tiny bit like >> Yeah, it's definitely much better than how it was before. I was so concerned that my face would never recover again to being able to smile properly normally. But I'm going to try now looking at myself.

[00:27:15]It's I think it's just about there. My face. I was looking at that constantly.

[00:27:20]Whenever I would wake up in the morning, uh, brush my teeth, wash my face, look at myself, I could just see this version of myself staring back at me. And I hated that version of myself. It was really quite difficult to face myself in a mirror.

[00:27:46]Then I would say swallowing my food and drink started.

[00:27:52]And then the second thing And then the second thing, swallowing food and drink, that still stayed a problem up until 2 months of coming out of the hospital. And still until this day and still to this day, I have to eat much slower and I can't gulp liquids anymore. It's still early days, but to be honest, I think that's okay. I can live with that. If I have to take my time eating food, that's probably a good thing.

[00:28:26]And then what else? So then my face droopiness and my smile.

[00:28:32]That was uh and then the last thing I would say was my speech which after my face kind of got back to normal after about 6 weeks I would say my speech is still an ongoing issue and it's going to take me the most time. It just takes a lot more energy to be able to speak and I have to speak a lot slower.

[00:29:03]But you know what? It's okay. Again, it's like with the food. If I have to speak at a slower pace and take my time, then it's easier for me to actually uh g it's easier for me to basically gather my thoughts.

[00:29:25]Some words I also find that I struggle to pronounce.

[00:29:30]And in those moments where I hear myself, a little birdie in my head says to me, "Stroke. You've had a stroke." Because that's the connection that I've made.

[00:29:41]It's like I still am not connected to my voice, which is an ongoing journey. And part of making this video is to rebuild that. There's a dog behind me.

[00:29:57]Are they going to walk past? And that's part of the reason as to why I'm making this video.

[00:30:05]It's because I want to build up that confidence with myself, build up that self-esteem and connection with my own voice. I mean, my voice is essentially me. It's your vehicle in life. And if you can't love the way that you sound and the way that you tell a story, then you can't truly love yourself. And I know this and it's been very difficult.

[00:30:31]I've been beating myself up a lot, especially at work because I'm so focused on the way that I present myself, the way that I communicate.

[00:30:42]It is really fast-paced for my recovery that I need. But in saying that, working in a job that is fast-paced, it kind of uncovers areas of uh areas of not weakness, but areas that I need to develop and work on.

[00:31:10]I need to just ground myself and just put out videos and hopefully make more videos around, you know, our life here in Glasgow. I'm incredibly happy in Glasgow. And same with Justina.

[00:31:26]Like, we're so happy together. And Justina is now doing petsitting full-time, dog walking full-time. She's in such a happy place. And I am in a much happier place, but I'm not in a place that I feel fully confident and capable yet. And this is all part of the adventure. Like, and this is all part of the journey for me, part of my recovery.

[00:31:58]We haven't even got I haven't even got to a full year of recovering. I haven't even got to a whole year of me recovering from I haven't even got I haven't even got to a point where it has been a full year since I've had a stroke. But I will get there. I will build up my self-esteem, my confidence.

[00:32:22]My smile is back.

[00:32:24]It still feels weird and sometimes hard to smile even though it seems okay, but uh it's still a journey. I've just noticed that my voice is becoming a little bit tired. So, I'm gonna go home, grab a cup of tea, and pick up with you guys in the next couple of days or so because this subject is so important to me, and I feel like it will create awareness for other people. I didn't know any of this could be possible for me, especially at my age, but here we are in Pollock Park talking about me having a stroke. So, life is very random indeed. All right, catch up with you guys another day. But most importantly, but most important but most importantly is to raise awareness for strokes.

[00:33:22]>> Say sweet ones on just testing my speech. What's wrong with my voice?

[00:33:29]>> Healing isn't linear. From the outside, people think I recovered. My smile came back. My voice came back. People say he wouldn't even know. But strokes leave invisible damage. The kind no one else can see. Fatigue, confusion, health anxiety. Will this happen again? And on some occasions, aphasia, stroke damage affecting communication.

[00:33:57]Sometimes the words are there, but my brain can't read them. But the positive is after a stroke the brain tries to rewire itself forming new pathways adapting trying to reconnect. They call it neuroplasticity.

[00:34:14]And for me healing has involved speech therapy.

[00:34:17]>> So how is Misha then compare to Misha now? Learning to trust my voice again.

[00:34:24]Making it strong again. Breath work.

[00:34:27]Nervous system regulation. Blood thinners. Statins. Daily reminders that this really happened. I'm still waiting for my PFO closure. Still healing. Some days I feel strong. Other days it still overwhelms me.

[00:34:43]>> Health experts are warning about a rise in strokes among younger adults. But I'm starting to understand that recovery isn't about becoming the person I was before. It's about learning who I am now and feeling connected to me again.

[00:34:59]Testing my speech. One, two, one, two.

[00:35:03]Testing my speech. Can you hear me?

[00:35:19]in the near future. PFO closure, try and monitor my heart condition, which both of these things are congenital heart defects. I was born with these things.

[00:35:34]And I will continue to be on blood thinners for the rest of my life, on statin to keep my cholesterol down for the rest of my life. And then beyond that, I just need to try and be kind to myself. I will be having this PFO closure, fingers crossed, this year. And then I think I can just relax and learn to love this new version of myself.

[00:36:08]Yes, I have brain damage now. And when I think about that too much, it terrifies me. It makes me feel really vulnerable. It makes me feel like I've lost some intelligence, capability.

[00:36:28]Because the part of my brain in my preffrontal cortex which was damaged here will never come back. It will never regenerate. That is literally permanent brain damage. So in my because because the part that was damaged here in my because the parts that was damaged here in my free and the because the part that was damaged here in my pre because the part because the part that was so yes my brain is just trying to understand that there's an area of my brain that just doesn't work anymore. It cannot form those connections anymore.

[00:37:16]I'm healing. And I have accepted that my smile is okay. Because honestly, that has also been a really hard part of this journey is from the outside, my smile and my speech, you would never be able to tell that I've gone through something extremely traumatic like a severe brain injury. you just wouldn't know to look at me. And sometimes because of that, I feel like I've been fighting an invisible battle. And it's really hard for people to understand that still to this day, I struggle with my language.

[00:37:58]I'm trying to find words and I'm mixing things up. There's a thing called asphasia and sometimes I'm pulling the wrong words to use in sentences. And this too shall pass. I won't always have this thing called aphasia. Things will slowly start to settle. Um, even in the last month, I would say I have been getting better. And of course, on a YouTube video, I'm polishing off my speech and kind of perfecting a good story to tell you guys. I don't want to put that version of me out into the world because I just haven't really made peace with that yet. With a stroke, it feels like everything's out of your control. And even from the beginning of my journey, that's exactly what I've experienced, a lack of control. And for me, that's been just the biggest hardest part of going through not only before the stroke, which was so crazy intense, wondering what was going on with me, and then having the stroke, feeling really out of control, like my god, what is going on? and the aftermath, which is like waiting for my PFO closure, struggling with days where I have poststroke depression, and other days where I feel like I can't communicate, I've got brain fog, and I can't remember words to use in the correct order, or I'm just not making any sense. So, that feeling of being out of control, I would say, has been the worst emotion. and a thing to deal with.

[00:39:45]I just need to learn to be kind to this new version of myself. Give her a hug because it has been incredibly tough and I have been incredibly tough on myself.

[00:40:07]Wow, we really have leveled up the confidence towards the end of the video.

[00:40:13]I am standing in a public setting.

[00:40:16]Albeit is quite quiet at the moment, but I have a tripod fully on show and I'm clearly filming in public and I just cannot believe the journey that I've been on from the start of the video to the end of the video. Actually during this entire time I have been having speech therapy lessons and it has been an amazing journey. one the video and two the speech therapy because at the beginning of the video I expressed that I had had a feeling of being disconnected and I lost my sense of self and now today I'm standing here feeling so much more like myself and I'm able to feel that connection to my voice again and it's just absolutely beautiful and at its core what I learned in speech therapy is just to breathe And it seems so simple and it's kind of like well duh. We all need to breathe to survive.

[00:41:18]But for the longest time, for a year and a half, my nervous system quite frankly was.

[00:41:26]And I woke up every day with the best intentions. Eating right, going to the gym, hydrating myself, going to bed at an early time, having good night's sleep, but waking up every single day feeling like crap. And so my nervous system was all over the place trying to understand what has even happened to me.

[00:41:52]And now I understand what has happened to me. and the worst is behind me hopefully. I mean, I feel really good today standing here and that is just an amazing statement to be able to say anyways. And there's beauty knowing what I'm dealing with now. So, my nervous system can just go back to baseline. And part of that process was with the speech therapy and learning to breathe properly again. In making this video, it will help myself, but also I'm making this video for you guys watching because May is stroke awareness month. And so I want to create awareness for strokes.

[00:42:36]And if you are watching and you've had a similar situation to me, then obviously we understand each other and we understand how difficult the whole process is. Also, if you're in a situation where you are having random pains in your head, you don't feel quite right, then I want to say just trust your intuition because my intuition did not lead me astray. I was always constantly saying to myself and to doctors, professionals that something is not right with me. and I ended up having two strokes, a mini stroke, and found out I had two heart problems. But that's not to say that if you can find some sort of recognition in my story that this will also happen to you, that is not the case. I feel like part of my story and why I was ignored was because I was active and I was at the gym at the time of having a stroke. Another thing I also want to highlight in my story is that if you're watching this and you ever see a loved one exhibit signs of uh droopy face, drooling, slurred speech, make sure to call up 999 straight away.

[00:43:57]So, it's f.

[00:43:59]If you see anyone exhibiting any of those symptoms, make sure to call up 999 straight away because time is brain. The longer that a blood clot is restricting blood flow in your brain, the more brain cells are going to die off. And that is a fact. But what is important is that I'm sharing my story with you guys. and hopefully it will help at least one person that's watching. Around 100,000 strokes happen in the UK every year and strokes in young adults are rising. I was 36. I was at the gym. I had no idea it was happening. Look for the signs.

[00:44:43]Call 999.

[00:44:46]I just had to stop then to really work out how to end this video. And what I would normally say with Justina at the end of all of our videos would be, "Cheers to freedom."

[00:45:00]And I don't feel like that's right in the context of this video. I'm not really feeling that vibe. But what I will say is thanks for listening to my story. My name's Misha and I'm a stroke survivor and I will be back and I'll just breathe because breathing has really helped me. So bear with me as I just breathe out into the outro.

[00:45:32]You can breathe with me if you like.

[00:45:49]I sing it one last time for you.

[00:45:56]Then we really have to go.

[00:46:02]You've been the only thing that's right.

[00:46:08]in all I've done.

[00:46:15]And I can barely look at you.

[00:46:21]But every single time I do, I know we'll make it anywhere away from here.

[00:46:40]Light up, light up.

[00:46:44]As if you have a choice.

[00:46:50]Even if you cannot hear my voice, I'll be right beside you, dear.