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Speak Out August 2013 17
The story of Margaret Bashford is an inspiring one!
Margaret was a highly respected receptionist at Charles
Sturt University in Albury.
She loved gardening, and creating including sewing and
craft. Margaret also enjoyed socialising – being with her
family and friends. All this changed when Margaret, aged
44, suffered a stroke in 2001. Luckily her sons Michael,
aged 18, and Paul, 13, were on hand to ring an ambulance.
She suffered right-sided weakness and aphasia and spent
several months in hospital.
Returning home after rehabilitation, visits from some
friends became less frequent. She was having trouble
communicating – her only means was a pen and paper,
writing down words and people guessing the rest of what
she wanted to say. This left her battling depression, with
feelings of emptiness, despair and extreme loneliness.
Margaret had extensive speech therapy to help her regain
her speech. Her main aim was to say her own name. After
this achievement, she felt immense guilt that she could not
say her husband or sons’ names – she began calling her
husband “Man”, her sons “Little man” and “Little person”,
and she called Kayla, the cat, “Little little person”. She also
hated having to rely on them to help her with everyday
activities like reading and understanding recipes, cutting
pumpkin, using a tin opener or vegetable peeler, getting
dressed, doing up buttons, and even brushing and styling
her hair.
She felt like a child again. She also had many very
embarrassing experiences, such as at her son Paul’s
soccer match where she accidently called out to her son
“Good girl”.
Feeling isolated, alone and waiting for family or friends
to visit, unable to go out or visit others, Margaret was
determined to find independence. Learning to drive was a
great challenge but after one year she accomplished this
dream and got her licence back. She loves the freedom
that this has given her; to attend meetings, visit friends and
go shopping. When buying petrol, she uses either pump
2 or 4 as they are the numbers that she is able to say. She
still finds it very difficult to read letters, let alone books that
she once so passionately enjoyed.
Margaret now communicates in a range of ways, including
now being able to say so many more words, names,
phrases and sentences. It took her five years to be able to
say her close friend Jenny’s name. Margaret now writes or
types words on her iPad that she is still unable to say. She
has a communication book that has pictures, key words,
and sentences that she is able
to show people in her everyday
environments to communicate
e.g. the type of bread or meat
she requires at a store. She also
asks the checkout person to
write the amount down that she is required to pay, as she
is unable to understand when an amount is spoken.
As Margaret began to accept her condition and the effects
it had on her life, she wanted to learn more about stroke and
help other people who had suffered a stroke. She has been
an active member and leader of the Albury Wodonga Stroke
Support Group for the past eight years. Margaret also loves
to regularly catch up with several of her girlfriends, who also
have aphasia, to do craft activities, and have a chat and a
laugh about the challenges of living with aphasia.
Margaret shares her experiences and knowledge with the
Allied Health Assistant Course at Wodonga TAFE. She has
worked with these students on a local Communication
Access Project where Albury Wodonga businesses
and service providers are provided with strategies to
improve access for customers/clients with communication
difficulties. They have also approached local government
and attend Albury ACCESS meetings, networking with
groups such as Age Concern and other disability services.
Margaret has also been involved in the Client Tutor
Programme in the Speech Pathology course at Charles
Sturt University for the past ten years. She provides groups
of six to eight third-year students with real-life situations
and examples of the difficulties that people with aphasia
are faced with every day. This hands-on approach provides
invaluable information that cannot be learned through
textbooks alone. The students, in turn, help Margaret with
particular communication challenges that she wishes to
overcome, for example, developing a list of common written
sentences that she can select from when writing an email.
Each day presents new challenges and successes and
these keep Margaret optimistic. She truly loves to teach
and interact with her students. She, in turn, has the
opportunity to provide a service that will help others, and
she feels valued and needed. It is through advocating
and promoting knowledge of strokes and communication
disabilities where she feels like she is making a difference.
This work has had an immensely positive effect on her self-
esteem and confidence. by Jenny Kilo
Marion Vile
Senior Speech Pathologist, Albury-Wodonga Health
Start the Conversation... Margaret’s story