Having a stroke in my 30s was the best and worst thing that happened to me

Jennifer Howley was flat-out running her own restaurant. But everything changed when she suddenly became disorientated and unable to talk.

Stroke survivor, Jennifer Howley, taking a break at Enniscrone beach, Enniscrone, Co. Sligo. Photo: James Connolly

JUST before Christmas 2015, Jennifer Howley was at home alone in Co Sligo when she felt something was wrong. “I didn’t really know what was happening to me. I couldn’t talk. I couldn’t feel anything,” she recalls.

By the time her partner, Brendan, arrived and brought her to the hospital, her symptoms had eased: “I waited for an MRI, and then they said, ‘You’ve had a stroke, actually a pretty serious stroke’.”