Gilbert Vaux was a Somerset farmer who experienced a stroke in 1986 when he was 58. When Lightning Strikes is his account of the stroke and his recovery. Its value lies not in polished prose or anything that makes it stand out, but in its very ordinariness – stroke is something that happens, that normal people experience and recover from, partly due to their own determination and partly with the assistance of their family and friends.
Vaux experienced aphasia after his stroke, and decided to tell his story as part of his therapy. When Lightning Strikes is the result. Through it we can see someone who improves not just over the first three or six months, but over years. Through it we sense the importance for rehabilitation of community participation and social capital – participation in the farming community, in the local church choir, in amateur dramatics, and finally in foreign holidays.
For a physiotherapist, the account is full of interest for its documentation of the slow physical changes after a stroke, and for the author’s long-term engagement with efforts to improve. Vaux does not hide his tears and fears following the shock. His vulnerability when he first rides a bus alone into Yeovil and walks the hundred yards to the hospital out-patient department is well described. His account of the stiffness due to muscle ‘spasticity’ in both his leg and his trunk is of great interest.
Chapters 6 and 7 concern Gilbert Vaux’s up-bringing, his life in farming, and his family life. For many they may seem irrelevant to the story of his stroke and recovery afterwards. But these chapters serve to highlight the way that illness interrupts a life, and diverts it to a new path.
This was a privately printed book which is not easily come by, but through its very ordinariness it is of great value for the family and friends of someone with a stroke. It tells of long-term improvement following stroke, but an improvement gained through persistence, a readiness to try and practise, and a courageous engagement with the world beyond the home.
Well worth a read, for both clinicians and those who know someone who has had a stroke.
Vaux, Gilbert (1994) When Lightning Strikes: Life after a Stroke, Lewes (Sussex), Temple House Books