Later, we realized that these episodes I had were TIAs. A couple of days later, while playing in a paddling pool at home, I suddenly got a terrible headache, like nothing I’ve had before or since. It passed after about thirty minutes. I was in my bedroom when, all of a sudden, my eyes went uncontrollably in different directions, like they were being ripped apart. Unlike the other day when this happened, they stayed like this for about an hour, and I was left with double vision for several weeks after. I lost all my balance and fine motor skills instantly and cried out to my mum, who then sent me to the hospital. At first, they were unsure what had happened, but then they found I had had an ischaemic stroke in my right thalamus. After two weeks in the hospital, thankfully, my symptoms passed (except for my double vision, which remained a little longer). At the time, no cause could be found, and all the doctors at Great Ormond Street, where I was being treated, were completely stumped.

In the interim period between this and the next stroke in 2020, I made a full recovery and returned to doing all of my sports and activities. However, I had never really been able to process emotionally what had happened to me due to my young age, leaving me with PTSD from the event of the stroke and anxiety that has remained with me to this day. Before the next stroke, I suffered various possible TIAs, but still no cause was found despite ongoing tests.

Soon after the first stroke, I began to play the guitar, which quickly developed into a passionate hobby. It would help calm me when I was distressed and always felt like a real “f*ck you” declaration to the stroke, being able to do these intricate things with my fingers after briefly losing that ability.

Fast forward six years, and after going for a routine MRI scan of my brain, we discovered that I’d had another smaller stroke, that I hadn’t even realised. We think this happened when I had one of these suspected TIAs. This was a real shock to my family and me, as we had been told fairly assuredly that the risk of me having another stroke was extremely low. It felt like a real setback, as at this point, my life was going very well. My guitar playing was progressing strongly, and I was doing well in secondary school. From this point on, the investigations were ramped up, but still nothing was found. I went a relatively long time without any TIA-like episodes, which by then we had been told were most likely a form of migraine.

After completing my A-levels, I moved to Austria to study under a world-renowned guitar professor to develop my music further. Before moving, I was discharged from the hospital with doctors saying that I should move on with my life and try to put all this in the past. However, with no cause ever found, something still didn’t feel right deep down. After nine months of living in Austria (having a great time), one morning in the main train station, before leaving for a day trip with a friend, the exact same thing happened – like it did ten years prior. My eyes went in opposite directions in incredible pain and stayed like that; then my entire right side gave in, and I collapsed onto the floor. I was rushed to the hospital, hardly able to open my eyes because of the pain in them. After arriving, a horrible flush of pins and needles rushed through my entire right side, and I lost control of the whole side. This whole experience was truly terrifying. I was in a foreign country, with people speaking a foreign language all around me, disoriented, in shock, and in a lot of pain, both physically and emotionally.

After a scan, the doctors came and explained to me that I had just had my third stroke. After a week in the hospital in Graz, I made a pretty much full recovery; however, I was beyond tired. A few days before my parents had flown out from the UK to come and help me get home, so the day after leaving the hospital, we got back on the first flight to Stansted to begin investigating what had happened on the NHS. Just after landing, I noticed a strange numbness in my right leg. We put it down to exhaustion and went straight back home from the airport. About fifteen minutes after getting home, I collapsed walking up a flight of stairs and had a TIA with my right side going numb. I was sent to the hospital and given a thrombotic injection after having probably around 7-10 TIAs that evening. I was discharged a week later and stayed at home for four months until I could return to Austria – alone.