JOHN Ellis is one of the lucky ones.
Just over a year after suffering an acute ischaemic stroke he is "back to normal", gardening, playing golf, and walking.
But the 77-year-old believes he would never have made such a full recovery if it hadn't been for the thrombectomy performed at the Western General in Edinburgh.
Read more: Smartphone ECG 'effective at detecting heart conditions' among palpitation sufferers
He was one of the last patients to undergo the intervention before it was withdrawn.
The stroke came out of the blue one morning in January 2018 at his home in Longniddry, East Lothian.
"I was sitting in the dining room and I went through into the lounge to pick up the tablet to check an email," he said. "I picked it up and dropped it, so I picked it up again and came into the dining room but then I dropped it again.
"My wife looked at me and said 'you're having a stroke - I'm going to get the ambulance'.
"I could hear her on the phone and I was sitting there thinking 'how am I going to explain to these people that there's absolutely nothing wrong with me?'. I felt fine.
"The ambulance came in about 20 minutes and I was glad it did because, by then, I wasn't very well.
"I think I was still conscious, but I've got very little recollection of it. I vaguely remember being wheeled out to the ambulance."
Read more: Only 13 patients in Scotland underwent thrombectomy in 2017
Mr Ellis, a retired personnel manager who has two grown-up sons and three grandsons, was rushed first to the Royal Infirmary in Edinburgh.
However, when he failed to respond to thrombolysis he was transferred to the Western Infirmary's stroke unit for an emergency thrombectomy instead.
"The surgeon who carried it out said to my son 'it's just as well it was first thing in the morning because we don't have the budget to do it at night'", said Mr Ellis.
"I had six weeks in the Western and when I started to recover I couldn't walk for quite a while. My ambition was to be able to get out of bed to go to the toilet.
"When I came out I was able to walk down the drive to the house with a stick."
He wants more patients to benefit from the treatment he did however.
Read more: NHS 'sleepwalking into stroke crisis'
He said: "I played 11 holes of gold on Saturday and I played five holes today. I walked from the house to church and back, and I also walked down to the golf course which is about a good quarter of a mile from here and yesterday I was working in the garden.
"Getting back to normal probably took four or five months, but I know people who have had a similar stroke and been in a wheelchair for years. I am more or less as fit as I was before I had the stroke.
"I put that down to having had the thrombectomy - I think if it hadn't been available I'd probably still be in a wheelchair now."
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