Case in point Janet SmithIn the midst of her second stroke, Janet Smith’s mind raced back to one she’d had 12 years earlier.She’d been absolutely terrified the first time around.“I didn’t know anyone who had even had a stroke,” she said.The second time around, her great fear was that the recovery would be long.“I thought, ‘Not again’,” she said. “For 12 years I had worked hard to move. I thought, ‘Am I going to have to spend another 12 years trying to get to the bathroom?’“To her joy, that was not the case thanks in large part to help she received from the Rehabilitation Day Hospital at King Edward VII Memorial Hospital.The 63-year-old said: ”I was very, very impressed. They were a nice bunch of girls. They were very professional.”Because her therapists were women, she was comfortable talking about her personal hygiene with them and able to ask questions she would not have asked a male therapist.The team answered all her queries, many times surprising her with their answers.“For example they would ask me about my goals,” she said. “One of my hands doesn’t work, so I told them I’d like to work on that hand to get it going again.”The therapists told her they would work with her on the hand, but that it might be an unrealistic expectation that it would return to being fully-functioning.“They told me they would work with me to improve the functioning,” she said.“After six weeks I left with more confidence in walking and doing what I had to do than I ever had before.”Ms Smith said she stuck to the exercises they laid out for her, because they took the time to explain exactly how they would benefit her.She said as part of her physical therapy she was made to march.”After a while of marching I told them it was boring,” she said. “They explained to me that I should continue because the marching was working almost every muscle in my legs and that this would make me stronger.“I do want to get stronger so I do the marching every day and I remind myself how it is helping me.”She continued: “They said I can call for help with exercises if I need to and when they do a check up with me in a few months, if I’m not doing as well as I should, they’ll bring me in to the programme again.”She said this action makes her feel supported.“I think it’s so good and really they should have had [the Rehabilitation Day Hospital] going 12 years ago.”