Here’s what I knew about strokes before I started working at the Stroke Foundation:
My Dad had one and lived. He was very, VERY lucky.
Here’s what I’ve discovered after nearly three weeks at the Stroke Foundation:
- Stroke is Australia’s second single greatest killer after coronary heart disease and a leading cause of disability.
- In 2011, Australians will suffer around 60,000 new and recurrent strokes – that’s one stroke every 10 minutes.
- One in five people having a first-ever stroke die within one month and one in three die within a year. (Did I mention how my Dad was lucky?).
- Stroke kills more women than breast cancer and more men than prostate cancer.
- Close to 20 per cent of all strokes occur to people under 55 years old.
Did you know that?? Although Dad wasn’t old when he had his stroke, I was staggered at the percentage of people under 55% who suffer a stroke. And stroke kills more women than breast cancer! How did I not know that???
Suffice to say, I love my new job. It’s so great to work at a place that has makes such a tangible difference to the community. Yeah, it’s not publishing, but I haven’t ruled out going back to that later on. Who knows, maybe I’ll start writing again. Good luck to anyone doing NaNoWriMo this year – I just didn’t have it in me this time around.
In other news, I finally finished The Selected Works of TS Spivet by Reif Larsen after buying it at the MWF about three years ago. It has taken me a month to read (which is unheard of for me), but it was so worth it. My mind has been wonderfully melted.
