I was driving home from work one evening when it happened. I was 49, and had never suffered a significant illness. But I had been working far too hard as an engineering manager, taking on extra jobs and putting in long hours. This particular day, I'd left a little earlier than usual because I felt woozy, with a strange buzzing sensation in my head. By the time I got home, I couldn't move. My wife called an ambulance and I went straight to A&E, where I blacked out. When I came round, I couldn't talk, although I could feel, hear and smell. During the two days I'd been unconscious, I'd become almost completely paralysed – the only part of my body I could move was my eyelids.

My immediate problem was simply breathing; the paralysis in my chest meant I had to concentrate on my diaphragm in order to draw breath. I'd had a stroke but, more unusually, thanks to a blood clot at the base of my brain, I'd also developed a rare neurological disorder called locked-in syndrome, a condition in which I was a prisoner in my own body. The prognosis was either death or living death.

Faced with this, I felt strangely calm. I've since learned that people suffering from locked-in syndrome often experience a mild euphoria at first – the brain's way of preventing panic. It's certainly true I set about the problems facing me without question or surprise. I was determined to overcome my difficulties; my recovery became my job.

During the first few days I found even thinking exhausting – it would have been so easy just to give up and slip away. Instead I focused on immediate problems: swallowing, trying to move my head, finding my voice.

I began to communicate with my wife, son and daughter by blinking: one blink for yes and two for no. The hospital's speech therapy department produced a spelling board – I'd blink in response to a finger passed along the letters, and likely responses were listed as a short cut.

Fed on baby food via a tube in my stomach, I worked on trying to speak. When my voice did start to return, the first sound I was able to make was crying. It was as if I'd lost control of my emotions along with my muscles – like a baby, I'd cry out wordlessly to attract attention.

I was later told that until I started to recover I was simply expected to die, and nurses were told not to prioritise me. To some extent, such negativity only fuelled my determination to recover. Told I would never regain movement below my neck, I spent days concentrating on my big toe, willing it to move. Finally, after months of concentration, it flickered. It was a tiny but significant victory, and I felt a genuine sense of triumph.

By now, feeling was returning to my face and I was able to speak again, one word at a time. Now people really started to take notice. My consultant was bewildered – as far as he was concerned, I should have been dead. Few locked-in syndrome patients make it past the first few months, and of those who survive, fewer regain any motor control. But the human brain has unexplored capacity – I believe I managed to tap into some of that.

I continued to break down the barrier between my brain and my body, and feeling gradually returned to my other toes, my fingers and my legs. Six months after my stroke, I was walking with a Zimmer frame, and after a year I was fit enough to look after myself. Unfortunately, some things could not be mended – my marriage, already under strain due to my near-constant work, had collapsed during the early stages of my recovery.

Sixteen years after my stroke, I still walk with sticks most of the time, and need regular physiotherapy sessions. But to the best of my knowledge I've made the most complete recovery of any locked-in syndrome sufferer, and I think the condition is better understood as a result – at the time of my stroke, the possibility of the brain developing new nerve connections simply wasn't recognised.

What's more, I do things I was never able to before – my son and I take part in motor sports, for example, which I didn't have time for when I was working. My personality has changed, too – I'm a softer, kinder person now, and I have new friends, more interests. In many ways, I feel more alive now than I ever did before my stroke.

• As told to Chris Broughton

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