MY STORY - ENID THOMPSON
A year after my stroke - February 1999 - on everyone's recommendation (not my own, I hasten to add) I started attending Haven House in Hessle, where I saw an Art Therapist. I felt that at the age of 42 I had become a little old lady.
The Art Therapist slowly but surely worked at all the barriers that I had surrounded myself with. I really was very stubborn back then. After quite a while of visiting Haven House it was suggested I see an Occupational Nurse who used to take me out on shopping trips where I would have to ask for things. Well when I went shopping if I could not find what I wanted that was it I didn't get it, but with the Occupational Nurse's perseverance I eventually learned to ASK!
It was the Occupational Nurse who suggested I might find DUET beneficial and suggested I enrol on the PDP - Personal Development Programme - which I did. In September 2000 I attended my first day at DUET but, alas, it was not going to be long before DUET closed its doors for good, in October 2000. But not before I was given a glimpse of what I was to enjoy and learn to this day - COMPUTERS! I attended a workshop pop-in where Adrian Paddison introduced me to my first attempt at computers, but not my last.
After DUET closed I joined DITTO run by Steve, who carried on teaching me the basics of the computer until February 2001. I then joined Hull College sight centre on a course called information days for the visually impaired, and - guess what! - yes, they had computers but these were more geared up to my needs they had zoom text. I started attending the computer course in February 2001.
In April 2001 I joined the main college and took my CLAIT exam. As a visually impaired student I am allowed a support worker, who is provided for me by the sight centre and reads my work and my exams for me. The first 10 week CLAIT course was Word Processing. When it came to the exam the powers that be decided that you may have a support worker for the class work but not in an exam. So being the determined person that I am, I decided that I could the exam myself, but alas I found that I couldn't. So I had a word with the people in charge at the sight centre and they took up my case and that of others with sight problems (there were three of us) with the powers that be. It was then agreed that we could have our support workers with us when taking our exams. By the time all this was sorted out it was too late, the course had finished. So in September 2001 I was reinstated on the CLAIT course and completed it successfully. I am at the moment studying for my Integrated Business Studies 2 and I am also taking Microwave cooking for the visually impaired and learning how to use the Internet.
In February 1998 I suffered a stroke. It affected my sight. I lost the central vision, which is the part which sees detail, and I also lost a section of sight which encroaches on the central vision and which makes reading very difficult. All this started with headaches and sight loss, which at first my GP treated as migraine. But as the weeks went by he tested my eyes and arranged for a specialist to visit me at home. The specialist dismissed my severe headache and sight loss as a malingering migraine. Five days after the specialist's visit I was finally admitted to Hull Royal Infirmary.