Andrew was told he wouldn’t walk again, now he’s made it to the mountain

Bendigo Advertiser, May 25, 2024: Mandurang South resident Andrew Marks spent 45 years working in agricultural and rural banking, the last decade-and-a-half of it around the Bendigo region.

It was an interesting and varied career, which he enjoyed.

Then one morning a year ago he woke up having a stroke.

It came “out of the blue” and didn’t involve typical symptoms.

“I had really, really bad nausea and balance issues,” Mr Marks says.

“Rushing to the toilet to vomit, everything was on an angle.

“It was terrible, and I was trying to navigate my way around the house in those conditions.

“That caused me to ring triple-zero, and they got an ambulance here and got me into hospital.”

Initially it looked as if the stroke would rob him of any kind of quality of life.

In hospital, Mr Marks was told by a doctor he would likely never walk again.

“It was pretty devastating,” he said. “Especially given I live [out of town] and like to be pretty independent.”

But after four months of “excellent care” and rehab at Bendigo Health, he was back out in the world with instructions to keep active.

As far as the ongoing physical effects go, I came out of it very lucky but I do have some cognitive issues,” he says.

“They’re hardly noticeable to most people but things are not quite the same as they were because of the blood clot going into my brain.

“It’s not the end of the world and I can pretty much do everything I used to but I decided to retire.”

Time to focus on the fruit trees

His former employer, Bendigo Bank, had been “unbelievably good” after the event, providing sick leave and support, then encouraging Mr Marks back to work on reduced hours.

“But I do get fatigue. It was tiring and I decided to reassess my personal priorities,” he said.

“I thought, ‘Well, maybe this is the time to stop working’.”

For the last seven months he has been able to focus on the chooks and fruit trees on his three-acre property, along with his health and fitness.

Before the stroke, his idea of doing weights was “cutting up firewood and carrying logs”.

But when he was released from hospital he was given a list of dos and don’ts, one of which was to do 30 minutes of light to moderate intensity exercise most days.

“Which I was sort of doing every now and again but not consistently,” he said.

Now the 64-year-old works out on his son’s abandoned gym equipment to a program written by an exercise physiologist and goes for long bike rides.

And this month he has started walking for a cause.

’76km in May’ represents Australia’s 76 daily stroke victims

“I’d been thinking I probably should spend a bit of time going for walks somewhere … and then this Stroke Foundation challenge came up for the month of May, and it’s been really good,” he said.

The Foundation’s ’76km in May’ initiative asks participants to walk that distance over the course of the month to help raise awareness about the number of Australians experiencing strokes every day and encourage people to get active and reduce their risk.

“Be aware of the common symptoms and if you come across somebody with any of them, don’t take it for granted, call triple-zero,” Mr Marks said.

The Stroke Foundation’s ‘FAST’ – face, arms, speech, time – checklist prompts: Has the person’s face/mouth drooped? Can they lift both arms? Is their speech slurred? And it emphasises that time is critical.

To cover the 76km distance – 1km for each person affected around the country – Mr Marks chose to walk along the Coliban main water channel, which supplies his dam.

Doing a 6km return trip every day in consecutive sections has seen him travel from his home “all the way basically to the foot of Mount Alexander”.

It has been “country you don’t normally see without walking through it,” he said.

“There’s no public road, you’re just following a track that Coliban Water use.”

The first instalment of the walk he did with his neighbour and sponsor Bevan Akins, who will also join him for the final section.

A year after his world suddenly tipped on its side, Mr Marks is as fit as he’s ever been and feeling good for it.

“I’ll keep walking for sure,” he says.

“I’ll include it in my fitness program.”