When people talk about Strokes they usually expect it to be the elderly that are the victims. This is not always the case and more and more “younger” people are having Strokes. This maybe due to a number of reasons like their lifestyle.

Being overweight can lead to heart & Stroke problems. Being a “smoker” – we’re told – doesn’t help. We are always told to watch our diet and watch our alcohol intake and to watchour Cholesterol.

In the media recently, I noticed that a youg girl of 8 years old had a Stroke. This tells  us all that there’s no respect for age when it comes to having a Stroke. If you visit a Stroke ward or unit you’ll see the various age groups there and you’ll notice that more and more people are of the younger generation.

I myself was 41 years old when I had a massive Stroke. I was of slim build, drank in moderation and I was a non smoker. My Cholesterol level was only 4.9 and this was below 5.0 which was the accepted level at the time. My cholesterol level was not to be the problem so that was one avenue we could omit.

My blood pressure was down to 230, yes, down to 230 which was critically high. This had to be gradually reduced and the only way to do that was to put me into an induced coma for 48 hrs.  The problem at this stage was if I had another Stroke  it would’ve killed me, so it was a waiting game in these early stages.

Strokes affect 1 in 3 and it is known as the silent killer.

Being young actually went in my favour as did being a non-smoker. Being young gave me the strength to fight back which may not have been the case if I was elderly. I learned to walk again after being wheelchair bound for 3 months, I had speech therapy to help me talk again. I still however have no use of my left arm or fingers and I walk with a stick & splint. I was lucky because my mind wasn’t affected and this is important.

I decided to start up UK Fantasy Soccer Club (UKFSC) which is a Fantasy Football site. I wanted to help out the Stroke charity because I appreciated the help I received and I wanted to help out the next person who may find themselves in a similar position that I was in.

UKFSC was created from scratch by myself which helped to keep my brain active. I made up all the rules and created the complex format to cater for all aspects of the game. I got a computer programmer to make up the complex software based on my data.

I put the Chest, Heart & Stroke charity link on my homepage and I hoped that visitors to my site would kindly donate directly to CHSS. I recently added the Stroke Association link to my homepage giving visitors a choice to where they’d like to donate to.

I’ll never fully recover from my Stroke but just being here is a bonus. So, I was young when I had my Stroke but people even younger than that are affected. After my MRI scans and the likes, nothing was found to be the cause of my Stroke so it was thought  that I had high blood pressure and stress levels at work and day to day routine could be be the cause.

It is important to look after your diet but as I have proved, that may not be the cause when having a Stroke. The Silent Killer can attack anyone at any time and at any age. In the UK, 1 in 3 are Stroke victims.

If you’d like to know more about Strokes or if you’d like to donate to the Stroke charities, you can do so at their websites, here’s ther links:

CHSS – http://www.chss.org.uk

STROKE ASSOCIATION – http://www.stroke.org.uk/

If you’d like to play at the UKFSC website you can do so here

UKFSC – http://www.ukfsc.com

You can also follow on twitter here:

CHSS  -  @CHSScotland

STROKE ASSOCIATION – @TheStrokeAssoc

UKFSC – @UKFSC

GROUP 1A  -  Week 6

GROUP 1A  -  Week 6

26th,27th,28th NOVEMBER 2011

Go to http://www.ukfsc.com to select your favourite team.

Rule 3a will determine the Fantasy Results.

RULE 3A

POSTPONED or RESCHEDULED MATCHES: Postponed matches will be decided by the previous weeks real life results (not the real life rescheduled match).

In this case, both team’s results for week 5 will be used to determine the outcome

5th,6th,7th NOVEMBER 2011

Go to http://www.ukfsc.com to select your favourite team.

GROUP 1A – Week 5

GROUP 1A – Week 5

 29th,30th,31st OCT 2011

be sure to select a team at UKFSC and follow their real-life matches.

Just go to http://www.ukfsc.com to register and play (FREE)

You’ll notice that the most popular scores were:  0-1, 1-1 & 1-2