We parked, as we always do for the 3Arena, on the Ringsend side of the toll bridge, and made our way over the river to join the queue. It snaked back and forth, but it moved quickly, and the mood was light-hearted.
It was the Saturday night of last weekend, and everyone was here to for the same reason, to forget the world and its problems for a couple of hours and have a good laugh at Peter Kay. Tickets scanned, we walked up the many steps to Row 44 in Block P, high above the stage.
As we did so, I was a little contemplative. In the way of so many events these days, I bought that ticket a long time ago, and in what for me personally, was a very different world. You see, going to a gig in the 3Arena sounds easy, but it took determination to get there.
On the bridge, I held the railings all the way across. Where there were open spaces, and when getting up and down kerbs, I linked arms with my sister. Inside, we took the lift as far as we could.
On the steps to our seat row, steeply raked, I went up slowly, clutching the guardrails, looking for all the world like I’d had too much to drink – and, to get to my seat, I took hold of complete strangers as I made my way along the row.
When I bought my ticket, it was November 2024. I was able-bodied, and booking to go to a gig, be it comedy, music, theatre or sport, posed no challenge at all.
It did now, though, because in the intervening months between buying the ticket and getting to use it, something I never expected to happen, something grave and unpredictable, happened to me.
In Rome, there to work as a journalist at the funeral of Pope Francis, I had a massive stroke. Over the next four months, in hospitals in Rome and in Co. Wexford, I had to face the laborious challenges of using my right arm again and, more importantly, of walking again, but one thing was always on my mind.
The first anniversary on 25 April and that Peter Kay gig more or less coincided. Come hell or high water, I was going. No matter what, I would be there.
I won’t bore you with all the details of my stroke, since many have been relayed here before.
To recap briefly, though, I was taken to the Policlinico Umberto 1, one of Europe’s largest hospitals, by ambulance from a café.
Phillip Nolan photographed exactly one year after his stroke in Rome
Speedy intervention there in the form of a thrombectomy, removing the clot that interrupted blood flow to my brain, left me with less damage than might have been the case had this happened at 3am when I was at home alone.
Forgive the pun, but that actually was the first stroke of good luck.
Fortuitous events followed in quick succession. The office flew my siblings out, with one replacing the other – except for the first night, when my younger sister had arrived but wasn’t allowed in, I was never alone.
My brother got me home by an air ambulance he organised with our managing director and editors.
The staff when I arrived to the ambulance on the tarmac at Dublin Airport, and to Wexford General Hospital, couldn’t have been nicer or more accommodating.
The same goes for St John’s Community Hospital in Enniscorthy. The nursing staff were tremendous fun, delighting in puncturing my occasional pomposity – I have ‘notions’, apparently! – but it was to the physiotherapy staff I ultimately owe everything.
From a tentative start, passing an inflatable ball between my knees as I lay prone, to walking along the bars, to stretching with resistance bands and learning how to use stairs, they coaxed and cajoled.
I took a wheelchair home, just in case, but I never used it even once, and I brought it back for someone who actually needs it.
The same holds true for the rollator, the walker as it perhaps is better known. On flat surfaces, I’m fine without it, albeit not for huge distances, and while I can get around the supermarket without any significant problems, I like the stability of a trolley to return to, and I’m not wild about looking up at any shelves that are set at greater than head height.
Overall, though, the rehab staff got me back on my feet, and I can’t praise them highly enough.
The speech and language woman taught me how to say my Rs again, as the inevitable droop on one side of my mouth slowly righted itself. It may never be perfectly symmetrical again, but I don’t look like a sad clown anymore.
As for the occupational therapists, they got me cooking again, which I love, and filling the washing machine, and stacking and emptying the dishwasher, which I don’t love, but has to be done.
On my last day in St John’s, the doctor confessed that when she first saw me and the sullen lump of gristle that hung uselessly on my right side, she assumed I’d never again have the use of my right arm.
The fact I’m typing this is testament to their skill and perseverance, as repetition that occasionally drove me mad instead paid off.
To a woman – and they were all women – they were magnificent. They knew when to push me, and when they indulged me, it still was with the proviso that while kid gloves were the order of that day, it was back to knuckledusters the next. Proper order.
All of this shows that everything is fine and back to normal, yes? Well, no. I still don’t have a great sense of temperature on the right side.
My hand knows where it shouldn’t be, but since the feedback is exactly the same if an item is too cold as it is when it’s too hot, it’s best for now to lead with the left, in the freezer, the grate, the oven and hob, the shower and sink.
My handwriting also needs a lot of work. Again, I can label food in trays for the freezer, but they look like they’ve been written by an eight-year-old.
This is an improvement, given that just months ago, they looked like they were written by a five-year-old, and I couldn’t hold a pen or pencil at all last year.
I can’t do the dot over the letter ‘i’ with anything resembling conviction, which is annoying when my forename has two of them.
These are small things, though. Much bigger is the perennial fear of falling. All the floors in my house are tile or wood, so there’s nothing to cushion me.
Public Enemy No.1, apparently, is the pedal bin, so I hold on to the countertop while using it. Small modifications with big rewards. Where possible, I’ve also removed items from the floor – if it’s a tripping hazard, it’s gone.
I’ve added only one thing, and that’s a grab bar in the shower. I don’t need it as such, but it’s handy when my eyes are closed because my face is wet and I’m temporarily disorientated. In retrospect, I should have done this anyway, years before I had the stroke.
Other than that, through grim determination or utter stupidity depending on your point of view, everything is as it was before.
I’ve changed. Nothing else has to, for now.
Having said that, a few brief negatives. You don’t notice it until you’re disabled, but everyone is in such a hurry.
In supermarkets, they brush past when you’re not moving quickly enough for their liking. If they do need to pass, and I appreciate the demands of modern life, a simple ‘excuse me’ costs nothing, and means a lot.
Ditto with sentences. I don’t need them finished for me, but I sometimes need a little longer to get the words out.
The same goes for thoughts – presenting me with options just fries my brain, presumably since it’s constantly working to rearrange the old, and now dead, pathways.
It’s much better all round if I’m allowed a little longer to reach a conclusion. I’ll get there, I promise, and in seconds. I’ll grant you it’s not nanoseconds, but there’s no need to be so rushed!
My family and friends give me that space, and all I ask is that others give it too.
As for strokes in general, in this country, if you recover at all, you’re on your own from then on.
After months of waiting, I was delighted to be called to the National Rehabilitation Hospital in my native Dún Laoghaire to have a chat with the doctor there.
I was told they were busy, but I would get an online programme for my hand in a few weeks. I’ve heard nothing since. That was the 14th of November.
So, it’s a year on from my stroke, and what have I learned? Well, everyone improves at a different pace, and in different ways.
For some, that means walking straight away, but with impaired cognition. Others, like me, knew the passwords and codes for all my email addresses and bank account and credit cards, but couldn’t walk, or move my arm. No two strokes are the same.
Let’s not ignore the indignities either, the nakedness in front of strangers, the nappies and the catheter, the being dressed and showered, even wiped, by others.
Guess what?
The nurses, women and men, are saints. They do things I wouldn’t do for someone I love, yet they do it day in and day out for strangers.
I was occasionally unruly, largely out of frustration at the uselessness of my body, but I hope mostly respectful. I appreciated everything that was done for me, even if I didn’t always show it.
I was reminded that the most important people in your life when your parents are no longer around are your siblings.
They’re the ones who have been with you the longest, who know when to humour you, but also when to tell you that it’s time you dispensed with the drama and realised you’re special only to them – others have more on their minds.
Friends have been brilliant at keeping in touch, and the motoring crew have been great too. Just recently, I stayed overnight in Marlfield House up the road at the launch of the DS.4 and DS.8. It felt, I don’t know, normal.
My neighbours here in Co. Wexford constantly ask if I need anything at all, and social media, so often vilified, has been indispensable.
Cards and gifts from people I have never met (one from Australia, for heaven’s sake), and probably never will meet, often moved me to the point of tears.
On my down days, few and far between, thankfully, when I asked the heavens why this happened to me, I was reminded to not be such a fool, and be grateful for what I had, not rueful over what I lost.
Above all, though, and I hope you will indulge me on this, I found within myself reserves I didn’t know I had.
Maybe it comes from close to home, because my mother had a breast removed in her late 40s, before reconstruction was common, and lived for another 30 years. She refused to be self- pitying, and was just glad to be alive.
I don’t know yet if that will be enough to sustain me in the long term, because I loved my cars, my wine and my travel, and all are pretty much denied to me for now.
I’ll do my best to follow her example, though, and live a new reality, and come to terms with a much smaller universe.
There’s an old saying, which goes along the lines that men make plans, and God laughs. He had a good old giggle at me, I’d say, but do you know what? I’m still making plans.
Long after I had the stroke, I went online and bought tickets. I’ll be back in the 3Arena again next month for Les Miz. Sure, feck it – we’re only here the once.
