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Even the most fleeting of moments can be enough to flip someone’s world upside down. In Life Changing, Jane Garvey speaks to those who have emerged from extraordinary experiences with awe-inspiring strength and resilience. Hear from a man who discovered he was the son of royalty, a woman whose skin changed from brown to white, and a man whose gambling addiction drove him to steal over €1 million from his work. Here’s what else you can expect from the series.

One evening in 2008, Charlie Wilson headed to bed as usual. He got up in the morning after an unremarkable night’s sleep, but immediately knew something was wrong. He recalls being horribly dizzy and disorientated. His wife called an ambulance, and by the time help arrived, Charlie was unable to produce a coherent sentence. It was clear he was having a stroke and he was rushed to hospital. When Charlie came round, he had no idea who he was. All of his memories from before his stroke had vanished – he couldn’t recognise his daughter and even his wife had to reintroduce herself. Now, all Charlie knows about himself is based on the stories of others. His family did all they could to try and jog his memories: his wife showed him their wedding photos, his mother told him stories of his childhood, but Charlie couldn’t recall anything. The driving force behind his recovery was his desire to hold down a job to provide for his family who had stuck by him. Find out how Charlie defied expectations with his recovery and has gone on to create new memories to hold onto in future.

He spent the days leading up to his wedding trying to win back the wedding fund they had been gifted which he had lost on a bet.

Listen to the full episode now on 麻豆约拍 Sounds.

I stole €1.75 million from work to feed my gambling habit

Tony O’Reilly clearly remembers the first bet he ever placed. He was 24, the year was 1998, and he fancied his odds on who would score first in the Netherlands-Argentina World Cup quarter final. For some years he had a reasonably controlled relationship with gambling, but when he took his habit online, Tony spiralled. He spent the days leading up to his wedding trying to win back the wedding fund they had been gifted by his soon-to-be father-in-law, which he had lost on a bet. As Tony’s debts grew, so too did his addiction to gambling. The management role he’d worked so hard to achieve with the postal service in Ireland meant that he was in charge of vast sums of money. When he started dipping into this to settle his debts, his financial situation went rapidly downhill. Tony ended up on the run from the law, hiding in a hotel room contemplating how he could carry on with his life after stealing €1.75 million from his work. After losing almost everything, find out how Tony rebuilt his life after placing his last ever bet.

Listen to the full episode now on 麻豆约拍 Sounds.

Vitiligo turned all of my brown skin white

When she was seven-years-old, Sheetal Surti – who is of South Asian descent – discovered a patch of white skin behind her ear. When the loss of pigmentation spread and more white patches started to appear, Sheetal was diagnosed with an auto-immune disorder called vitiligo. At school, she was never made to feel like an outsider and she found that her school friends were very accepting of her condition. Adults, however, were less understanding. Sheetal was subject to unsolicited remarks from family friends, who pondered whether she had serious diseases and questioned if she’d ever marry. This led to her pursuing a whole host of different treatments throughout her teens. One such treatment caused a burning sensation which would last for hours afterwards. None of them worked, and no one thought to suggest that she could allow the vitiligo to take its course. By her twenties, Sheetal was entirely white, and she ended up hiding the truth about both her vitiligo and her Indian heritage and masking her discomfort with humour. Yet Sheetal has since proved the naysayers wrong, and has learnt a lot about what it takes to feel comfortable in your own skin.

Listen to the full episode now on 麻豆约拍 Sounds.

Tony Kofi is the final guest in this series of Life Changing. He tells Jane Garvey how a terrifying accident shaped his whole future career. At 16-years-old, Tony was working as an apprentice on a construction site, replacing the roof of a house. It was there that Tony had his accident: he fell three storeys from the roof to the ground before landing on his head. As he plummeted, Tony accepted that his death was imminent, relaxed and closed his eyes. He felt as though he was moving in slow motion, and began to have visions of places and faces he’d never seen before. The strongest image was of him playing a musical instrument. Astonishingly, Tony did survive the fall. He continued to be haunted by the images he’d seen when falling, and after looking in books discovered the instrument from his vision was a saxophone. He bought himself one for £50 and taught himself to play by ear, listening to his mother’s record collection. In time, he was practising for eight to 10 hours a day. This paid off, and he secured a funded place at the prestigious Berklee College of Music in the US. Now, Tony is an award-winning jazz musician, a father and a grandfather. Pride, for Tony, came after a fall.

To discover the full story of each of these fascinating accounts and find out just how far each of these seven individuals has come, you can listen to Life Changing on 麻豆约拍 Sounds.