Arnot had a stroke in February 2020, just before the Covid 19 pandemic forced a national lockdown. He is 73 years old, a retired architect who ran his own practice, and always led an active sport-filled lifestyle. An avid supporter of Liverpool FC and Scarlets RFC. He always struck a balance between family life, his love of the practical side of architecture, and a special relationship with the French way of life.

His initial symptoms were being unable to speak at all and some weakness of the right hand, which improved relatively quickly. He was puzzled with his rapid release from the hospital and the Stroke Rehabilitation Unit (10 days in total) but related this to the Covid 19 situation. His main problem was the lack of information he got from the staff of the hospital regarding his condition. Gradually, with the help of speech therapy via Zoom and his wife’s perseverance with researching on the internet, he understood more of the problems and began a steady recovery. However, Arnot is bilingual (Welsh and English) and was not able to receive any therapy through the medium of Welsh. Being the day to day language of the family, he soon noticed the different movement the mouth was required to make. But perseverance is the key!

Once he was able to drive again his strength improved with walking in parks and not being afraid to talk to other people outside the family. Six months on, despite covid 19, his spirits are high and with the help of this wife Dianne, improvement continues.