Why? Because your doctor and therapists were complete fucking failures at getting you recovered?
'I learned to play guitar with one arm after a stroke'
Tony RomaineAn Inverness man has been able to resume his music career despite suffering a stroke that left him unable to speak or walk - by teaching himself to play the guitar one-handed.
Tony Romaine spent seven months in hospital recovering from a stroke that hit him "out of the blue" two years ago.
The 49-year-old dad of four was found by his wife Lynn lying on their couch unable to move or even cry for help after a clot caused the blood supply to his brain to be interrupted.
However, earlier this year he took to the stage to play his first gig since the incident, with plans for further shows in 2025.
"I couldn't imagine not doing music in my life," says Tony, who was initially unable to even swallow after the stroke happened.
"When people said I probably wouldn't be able to play again, I wasn't going to listen to that. There was probably a part of me that was like 'I'll prove you wrong' but I just had to get back to playing again."
Tony RomaineA music lover from childhood, Tony regularly played gigs around Inverness. In 2022 he forced himself to play a couple of shows despite feeling unwell - not realising that within days doctors would be telling his family to prepare for the worst.
"The day after the gig I had a rest day, so I was sitting on the couch and ordering a takeaway.
"By the time the takeaway got there, I was finding it difficult to move around but I just thought I was tired and under the weather. I never thought it would be anything like a stroke.
"By the time everyone was going to bed I was saying I would just stay there a bit longer, and I lay down. Next thing I knew, I couldn't move at all. I went to shout out, and realised I couldn't speak either.
"I was lying there all night, wide awake and thinking 'what the hell is going on?'."
'I might not be here tomorrow'
Tony's wife Lynn came downstairs early the next morning and discovered her husband, quickly phoning for an ambulance.
However, doctors said they could not do anything to break up the clot to his brain stem that caused the stroke.
"My family were told the day I went in that I might not be here tomorrow. I was having trouble breathing and had tubes going in and out of me."
The stroke was so severe that Tony had to be fed through tubes for several weeks while being cared for at at Inverness's Raigmore Hospital, firstly in the ICU and then the stroke unit.
Tony RomaineHe then moved to the RNI Community Hospital, for a further five months of rehab and physio.
Although the initial targets were focused simply on helping Tony to walk again, he was already thinking about how to play guitar.
"The first thing the physiotherapist said to me was that she just wanted me to sit up. I said to them 'I don't know how to do that', so she helped me, and eventually I managed to sit at the edge of the bed," he says.
"That was the start. But to be honest, I was thinking about music from the first day I was in hospital.
"There was so much stuff going through my head at that point but I was thinking that I'd have to cancel gigs and I was trying to figure out how I was going to do it."
Progress was slow at times, and Tony recalls being told how his brain needed to be "taught" that his leg was still there and could work.
As he continued to make progress with his body, he was able to start trying to play guitar again as well, even though his left hand and arm were out of action.
"I had no idea how I was going to do it," he recalls.
"It's not like I could just go to a guitar teacher, but once I figured out a couple of techniques it became a case of practicing them, which was easier."
The first song he re-learned was Eleanor Rigby by the Beatles, with a stripped-back arrangement to make it easier on him.
He could find inspiration in the likes of Edywn Collins, the former Orange Juice singer who suffered a stroke following a cerebral haemorrhage in 2005 but later returned to performing and making music.
Soon Tony was not just re-learning old songs but working on new material too, and in August the song Standing Stone was released on streaming services.
Another milestone came the same month when he played a gig for the first time in two years, taking the stage at the Rose Street Foundry in Inverness for 30 minutes.
"I was absolutely exhausted," he recalls.
"I stood out of my wheelchair at the end and my legs were shaking. But I'm growing in stamina all the time – I'm hoping to do an hour and a half, maybe split in two 45 minute sets, for my next gigs."
Charity support
Those upcoming gigs will be aimed at helping others, too.
He is hoping fundraise for Chest Heart and Stroke Scotland in the coming months, after they helped him with his rehab after the stroke, while his next show at the Tooth and Claw in Inverness will be to benefit the Oxygen Works charity in the city.
"When I was in hospital I saw people who had given up, and that made me really sad," he explains.
"I understand it, it's a terrible thing to go through but I wouldn't want anyone to give up - I want people to know that you can come through this."
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