I spent a long time thinking about this……. Pre Stroke, I used to go up to London on the train and didn’t even think about it. I used to leave my car at the station and then when the train had stopped,  I used to get the underground……..

So, I pondered all week before.  I emailed to say that I wanted to go, it was at Church House, Dean Yard, Westminster in London.  Ok….. i could imagine getting to London but not on the tube yet !

On the Friday before,  I went down to Rochester Train Station.  I could only park for 3 hours, however, just around the corner was a Long Stay Car park. Which if you park in a disabled car park space and have you blue badge on display, so you can park there all day !!!

Then I went into the Station and they showed me the lift to the top floor and if I needed someone to help me on the train (and off in London) then I only had to shout. The only thing was the tube and basically it was a Taxi ride from Victoria Station.

I was really proud of myself in a way, I spent the whole day in London (via the Train Station and the Taxi) and ok, I was tired but I did it and as I say, once I have done it the first time, then its fine.

There were workshops :- iReadMore, which was a word reading app for patients with aphasia ( which i was one of them !) iTALKbetter, again an app to improve word finding. A sonic sleeve which gives auditory feedback on forward reaching movements such as reaching a cup of tea.

There were talks as well :- Stimulating Speech, Upper Limb Rehabalitation Project. It was really good and it made you think about the different effects that a Stroke can have.

I signed up to be a Volunteer for PLORAS. They do an MRI brain scan and a language assessment to predict language outcome and recovery.  So lets see…..