ON December 25th, 2004, Anna Smith-Higgs headed to her parents’ house with her sisters and their partners to celebrate her son’s first Christmas.
When she began to feel out of the ordinary, her family presumed she was drunk – she hadn’t drunk the previous nine months because she’d been pregnant.
But her symptoms were caused by something far more sinister, as it was later discovered she’d had a stroke.
Anna, now 45, from Harlow in Essex, gave birth to her son Henry November 24, 2004.
When Christmas Day came around, Anna, her partner Craig, and baby Henry headed over to her parents to spend the day with her sisters and their partners.
But as the day was coming to an end, Anna started to feel strange.
She said: “We all had a lovely Christmas dinner, everyone was super excited because it was the first grandchild’s Christmas, they were making a lot of fuss with Henry.
“At 5 o’clock I came over really cold, but I’d drunk two or three glasses of wine throughout the day so everyone just thought I was drunk.
“We went outside to get some air. My brother in law brought me a coffee, and I went to take the coffee with my right hand but it just dropped, which I thought was hilarious.
“I guess I probably did think I was drunk, because what else could it have been? I was only 24.”
Anna’s mum drove her, Craig and Henry home, undressed her, and put her to bed.
She recalled: “Craig said ‘Don’t worry about anything, I’ll have Henry for the night, Anna’s had too much to drink.'”
Anna woke up in the middle of the night and fell out of bed – Henry was crying and she was trying to get to him.
But Craig picked her up and put her back in bed.
It wasn’t until the morning that Anna’s family suspected something was seriously wrong.
She said: “My sister came round because we’d left all of the presents at my dad’s.
She came round to drop my presents off, took one look at me, and realised there was something seriously wrong.
Anna Smith-Higgs
“She came round to drop my presents off, took one look at me, and realised there was something seriously wrong.
“My face had dropped and I couldn’t speak. I couldn’t say anybody’s name.
“So she phones my mum, my mum came round, called an ambulance, there were three paramedics, we were up three flights of stairs, and they had to get me down.
“One paramedic said I’d had a stroke there and then, but no-one believed him because I was so young.”
Anna said there were no warning signs before the stroke, but if FAST had been about then, she probably could have been taken to hospital right away.
FAST is an acronym that helps people identify the most common signs of a stroke and the importance of calling emergency services quickly. It stands for:
Face: Has their face fallen on one side? Can they smile?
Arms: Can they raise both their arms and keep them there?
Speech: Is their speech slurred? Can they speak clearly and understand what you say?
Time: Call emergency services if you see any of these signs
Anna was taken to Harlow hospital, but because it was Christmas they were running on skeleton staff and couldn’t give her an MRI.
She said: “I was transferred to Addenbrooke’s hospital, and there they gave me an MRI and confirmed I had a stroke.
“I spent two weeks there, and then back in Harlow hospital I spent the next five months on the stroke unit.
“I was the youngest person they’d ever had, and I had a baby, so they gave me lots of attention and I had physio twice a day.
“The nearest person in age to me was 66, and I was in a room with four other ladies who had dementia. Some of them, unfortunately during that time, passed away, so that hard to deal with.
“Craig and Henry were allowed to see me whenever they wanted.
“Craig gave up work to look after Henry. But after he spent five months mainly with my mum and my partner, he wouldn’t come to me. He knew who I was, but that bond was definitely lost.”
Anna said problems with her speech lasted about a month.
She said: “The doctors came in and were pointing at their belts and their watches and asking what is was.
“I had to say ‘I don’t know’. In my head I knew what it was, but I couldn’t get the right word out.
“My sight was seriously affected – I’m half blind in both eyes. I had right side weakness, I couldn’t walk, I was in a wheelchair. My right arm didn’t do anything, it just hung there.”
Anna also found herself crying all the time, describing herself as a “jibbering wreck”.
She said: “I was crying all the time, Craig would be sitting there with me and I’d just cry and cry and cry. I didn’t accept I’d had the stroke until about five years in, and then I accepted that I was disabled, I’d had the stroke and I needed help. But that’s the main thing – once you’ve accepted it, your life becomes a lot easier.”
Anna stayed in bed for two years, too scared of having another stroke. She said even going to the toilet was a “massive mission”.
But then one day she decided to get help – she went to the doctors and was prescribed antidepressants and had counselling, which helped.
The FAST method – which stands for Face, Arms, Speech, Time – is the easiest way to remember the most common symptoms of stroke:
F = Face drooping – if one side of a person’s face is dropped or numb then ask them to smile, if it’s uneven then you should seek help.
A = Arm weakness – if one arm is weak or numb then you should ask the person to raise both arms. If one arm drifts downwards then you might need to get help
S = Speech difficulty – if a person’s speech is slurred then this could be a sign of a stroke
T = Time to call 999 – if a person has the signs above then you need to call 999 in the UK or 911 in the US for emergency care.
Other symptoms include:
Still to this day, Anna doesn’t know what caused the stroke. She said: “They tried looking for everything. Because I was so young, they were trying to give a reason for it.
“However, they still don’t know what caused it. That was probably one of the hardest things I’ve had to deal with. The not knowing is really horrible because you don’t know how to prevent having another one.”
Today, Anna still uses a wheelchair when she’s tired. She has a DES machine to help her walk – a machine that sends an electrical pulse through your muscles every time you lift your foot off the floor.
She added: “My arm on the affected side doesn’t do anything really, I can’t pick up a glass of water and drink with it. I’ve had to relearn to do everything with my left hand, and now I can write, do my makeup, do my hair – I’m into 50s pin-up looks like victory rolls, and I’ve learned to do all of that with my left hand.”
I also get this thing, my partner calls it tunnel vision, where I think of something, and once I’ve decided on something I want to do, that’s all I concentrate on, so I decided to try burlesque.”
Anna started doing burlesque five years ago and likes the confidence it’s given her. She’s performed her act at the South Bank, Royal Festival Hall, at the Brighton Fringe, and Hebden Bridge Burlesque Festival, and is showing no signs of stopping any time soon.
Once you can accept what has happened, your life becomes a lot easier.
Anna Smith-Higgs
She said: “I like the fact that I’m a bigger girl, I’m disabled, and I can share my story – I can make grown men cry with my story.”
As well as making others aware of the signs of stroke, Anna’s message to others is “acceptance is key”.
She added: “Once you can accept what has happened, your life becomes a lot easier.
“Be kind to yourself, rest up, sleep, cry, scream, and do what ever makes you happy.”
This festive season, the British Heart Foundation is urging people to donate to the charity to help fund its lifesaving research into heart and circulatory diseases, including stroke.
The charity’s ‘a gift that keeps on living’ campaign is highlighting stories like Anna’s to show how vital the British Heart Foundations’s research is – not only for the millions of people affected by these conditions in the UK, but also for their loved ones.
Dr Charmaine Griffiths, chief executive at the British Heart Foundation (BHF), said: “Despite six decades of BHF progress, it is heartbreaking to know what at this special time of year millions of people like Anna are especially grateful for more time with their loved ones, and are hoping and waiting for treatments and cures that we just don’t have yet.
“But thanks to the generosity of BHF supporters, we can fund vital research to drive progress and find those breakthroughs and cures of tomorrow. It truly is the gift that keeps on living, and I’m so pleased that Anna is able to spend precious time with their family this Christmas.”
To donate to the British Heart Foundation this festive season and give a gift that keeps on living, visit bhf.org.uk/Christmas.
