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First impressions count

 Hi reader, 

I’m new to this blogging malarkey, so you’ll have to bare with me as I fumble my way around and work things out here! 

I thought I should introduce myself and explain what’s going on here first… 

I’m Chantelle. I'm 31 and last year I had a stroke a month before my 30th birthday. 

I live in the West Midlands in the UK with my partner, Lee and our 2 dogs Bella and Brian. 

We don't have children as we are both challenged in that department. 

I work in a Primary School as a Teaching Assistant and a Learning Mentor. 

I've got two nieces who will always be babies to me, but in reality they are both very sassy teenagers. 

My Mom and Dad are currently renovating a property in France; their dream is to open a bed and breakfast out there. 

As we stand today, I have been 'off sick' for 15 months and I'm still no better than I was this time 12 months ago if I'm honest, I don't really know if 'better' is ever going to be a thing.

Why am I blogging? I really struggled to come to terms with the fact that as a relatively fit and healthy, if only a bit porky, hard working and active young woman something so life changing had happened to me. And, such is the way of our generation, I took to the internet to find out what I needed to know. It was then I realised that there was very little out there in the way of HONEST information. Yes there were tonnes of stories about people who had had strokes and gone on to run marathons and skydives and lived an incredibly normal life afterwards and achieved great things, which is, of course, marvellous, its great to hear those success stories. But I am very much a realist, I wanted the nitty gritty, I wanted to read that it was fine that I was crying uncontrollably and sleeping more hours a day than I was awake. I wanted a frank and honest review of a post stroke life and for love nor money I could not find it. So I've made my own, and maybe, it'll help someone else in my position in the future. If nothing else, I'll have found an outlet for my rants! 😂


So... Here is my stroke story, warts and all. 

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