Diary: My Stroke 'Journey'

Art gave Billy Mann a chance to tell the story of his stroke in an unusual and often graphic way

My annual visit to the National Hospital of Neurology and Neurosurgery in Queen Square, London, to deliver some macaroons and Vin Santo to the therapy team for Christmas got me feeling sentimental. I realised that visiting the Neuro Rehabilitation Unit (NRU) on the second floor has become like returning to your old school. Memories come flooding back. Seeing the patients travelling the same rocky road I did four years ago is a wrench, riddled with pain but saved by an overwhelming sense of hope. So much happened here for me. It is where my life was put back together. It was a rebirth. So, as naff as that sounds, I feel quite attached to the place and to the people who helped me during my two-month stay.

Most of them have moved on, but Anne Fleming, who dealt with social work issues, was still there and full of good spirit and a still unfeasibly straight fringe. I deposited the festive goodies with her, asked her to pass on my best wishes to anyone who might remember me and put in a plug for an exhibition of paintings by survivors of brain injury from Headway East London art studio, Submit To Love.

It wasn't such a shameless plug since I have a series of five paintings included in the exhibition depicting my 'stroke journey', and as already stated, NRU played a key part in that. Each of my paintings includes a hand-written paragraph describing the five 'chapters' of the past four years, from the moment of the stroke to my life as it is today.

The first, 'Surrender' attempts to illustrate the period from the initial trauma to when I went into surgery.

The second picture, 'Oblivion', is all about what happened in surgery.

The third, 'Confusion', examines what happened after surgery when I was in and out of ITU and then on the stroke ward.


The fourth painting in the series, 'Survival', covers the sink-or-swim experience of my stay in NRU, where the chance to start again kicks into action.

And the final picture, 'Release', reflects on my life since discharge from hospital in February 2013 and the shape it has taken since then.


I could bang on endlessly about these pictures and their meaning, but the blunt truth is that, once they were finished, I was glad to see the back of them. I was bored with myself, and right now I don't care if I never see them again. Sometimes the right thing to do is to simply let go of what was and what happened. Strange, though, I can't imagine losing the tiny bit of love I feel whenever I visit the National hospital in Queen Square, and long may the macaroon continue to be delivered.

The exhibition of paintings by members of Headway East London is at Stratford Circus Arts Centre, London, until 23 February 2017.