update

It’s seven weeks now since my stroke, and I’ve been back home from hospital for some time. Clearly, I’ve been very lucky: as strokes go, mine was a mild one. I can talk, I can walk. The only problem remaining is weakness in my left arm and clumsiness in my left hand.

I didn’t restart my blog earlier because so much of my time was taken up with thrice-daily visits from the team of physiotherapists, occupational therapists and speech-and-language therapists, and doing the exercises they prescribed.

But now the physios (who deal mainly with balance and walking) have decided that their work with me is over: I’m back to normal. The SLT (who deals also with eating, drinking and swallowing) has decided likewise. The only visits now are from the occupational therapist making me work on my left hand. Even here I’ve passed several encouraging milestones: tying my shoelaces, opening a tin with a two-handed tin opener, unscrewing screw-top jars and bottles, buttoning and unbuttoning my shirt.

Anyhow, I’m going to restart this blog next Monday, 13 August, to coincide with the start of UCL’s annual Summer Course in English Phonetics.

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Not everyone knows that Christine Ohuruogu, winner of the silver medal in yesterday’s Olympic women’s 400m race, is not only a brilliant athlete but also a linguist: she holds a BA in Linguistics from UCL. So she’s been properly trained in phonetics.