Episode 2: Chapter 3 - Sally Callie - Recovery from a stroke on the operating table  (Stroke) - Looking back and the key learnings.

In this second episode, we meet Sally Callie,  a triple Olympian, a world record holder and an U23 world champion in the sport of rowing, who's also a mother, a teacher and a stroke survivor. Following the birth of Sally's second child in 2011 she experienced a seizure and upon returning to hospital discovered that she had a blood vessel deep within her brain which was ready to rupture. Sally needed to undergo brain surgery to remove the blood vessel and though this was successful, she awoke from the surgery to find that she could not move half of her body.

In this chapter Sally describes her main recovery learnings as she looks back on her experiences with hindsight.

Transcripts and show notes are available for each episode on the podcast website: storiesofrecovery.buzzsprout.com

Shownotes:

• ^00:30 - Set and be strict with your habits. Sally recommends making a checklist and ticking each item off each day: getting 8 hours of sleep, eating healthy and nutritious food, speaking positively and supportively to yourself, writing down three things that you are grateful for each day, and writing down the tiny 1% improvements,
• ^01:30 - Read up on the latest research on stroke recovery and apply it yourself,
• ^02:20 - Constraint Induced therapy (CI therapy) is very helpful recovering from stroke,
• ^04:15 - Know that "being a stroke survivor is twice as hard as going to three Olympics",
• ^06:30 - Read about Kintsugi and Wabi-Sabi. Redefine your perceptions of imperfection,
• ^08:40 - Practise Sally's acronym of GOLD (Gratitude, Obstacles have meaning, Leading from within & Daily habits - the biggest one),
• ^11:30 - For someone leaving the rehab centre: 1. Get your daily habits right (sleep, food, good support, books, positive self talk etc.), 2. Try to make sense of what has happened. Look for the opportunities and positives in your new situation to find meaning, 3. Begin to redefine imperfection and celebrate your point of difference. Own your new self,

^Sally's main tips