I was extremely lucky. The only lasting damage is occasional slight facial tingling and a hint of numbness in one arm. For a few months I had unusual bouts of extreme fatigue, but those seem to be fading now.

Otherwise I'm fully functional. Memory, speech, and mobility all seem fine.

I'm definitely much much luckier than some of the people I saw on my very brief stay on the stroke ward. One person had been on the ward for literally a year. A stay of a few months for regular rehabilitation sessions isn't unusual. (I got pretty angry that strokes happen at all. They can be so damaging that it seems unusually cruel for humans to live in a reality where that kind of handicap/illness is even possible.)

Practically, strokes are somewhat random. There are some risk factors - cholesterol, heart arrhythmias, smoking, alcohol, stress, high blood pressure - but you can be low risk and still suffer the effects of a loose clot.

In fact you can have a series of very minor ischaemic events and not even notice. They'll show up on an MRI, but you may not have any obvious symptoms at all.

That's terrifying about strokes being essentially random outside of the obvious risk factors.