A Near Miss

So, last June I suffered a stroke and almost died. How lucky was I? Incredibly.

I woke up on a Sunday morning. Went to the bathroom, picked up a couple of shirts to wash, and went downstairs. I stopped at my desk and collected some rubbish, went to the kitchen. On arriving at the bin I had no rubbish in one hand. The shirts were still in the other. I had no idea what happened.

Then it went blank. Briefly.

My eyes blurred. My thoughts went. It might have been a second but it was very scary. I lurched towards the washing machine to put the shirts in. I managed to open the door, put the shirts into the machine. And nothing else.

I staggered back into the corner of my kitchen, between sink and work surface. My right side wedged into the corner as it shut down in a systematic fashion. My arm was immovable, my leg followed. I had no idea what was happening. 

My left side was functioning. I grabbed a cup from nearby, put it on the sink floor, and turned the tap on. Had a sip. No change. Fuck. I was in trouble. I didn't know why I thought water would cure the situation, I just now knew it wasn't the answer.

If this had happened a few seconds earlier I would have been at the top of the stairs and tumbled down. If I had done the usual and put my phone on charge in the morning it would have been in another room and help would be unobtainable. As it was, it was in the pocket of my functioning left side.

If. If. If.

I rang the emergency services. They responded quickly. The ambulance was there in minutes. With the doors locked, the Fire Brigade were there not long after to break in. They got me out and into hospital in good time.

And I say good time because what happened next needed to be done in good time.

On the journey my face slipped, my speech slurred, all the signs of a stroke. Without what happened next I would have spent six months in hospital and the same again - at least - recovering at home.

They rushed me in, did their tests, consulted with a specialist in Birmingham, and offered me a drug new to the frontline that I was quick enough into the hospital to be capable of having.

And I'm living proof that science works.

Afterwards I was told it was the first time in the same day that two patients had been given the drug in Hereford County Hospital. It was that new. Both of us recovered.

While I had survived the stroke, I then had to survive the recovery. And you will never realise how debilitating a  hospital stay is until you've experienced it.

The only time my feet touched the floor in two weeks was to move from bed to chair. No further. It was strictly forbidden. Bedpans and Bedbaths, the X-rated Disney film no independent self respecting forty-something wants to be involved in.

When I was eventually asked to stand up after that time my ankles felt like they were rotating wildly like disco lights. It took two full days to be able to stand up with any confidence.

Over the next two weeks I became able to walk short distances. It's amazing how fast the body ceases to function when total inertia sets in. Then I attempted stairs. Three. Then six. Then a full flight.

The hospital spent three days trying to farm me out to Ross Community Hospital for further care. Ross didn't want me. Said they didn't cater for such a patient. I was classed as bariatric. Something I was when going in but, due to the diagnosis, I was no longer.

I had been diagnosed with water retention. Stemming, it seems, from my cancer treatment in 2012 and the drugs administered at the time. My weight had ballooned in the previous couple of months to a point of crisis.

In six weeks, after being put on water loss tablets, I lost 12 stone.

The sheer quantity of loss mystified everyone. I had been, apart from the sudden gain, pretty much the same weight for years. Now I was a lot less. I was now the same weight I had been in college, nearly 30 years ago.

Cue the purchase of a full new wardrobe of clothes... still with the same bland taste!

Since coming home I've had a very slow adaptation to the new reality of life. After coming out of hospital I spent another month at home with a catheter inserted, losing more weight, so ordered groceries to be delivered to the house.

When the catheter was finally removed I went to fetch milk. Carrying a four pint plastic bottle 20 yards to the checkout felt like the movement of an atlas stone. It was my full effort not to drop it or collapse under the weight.

The recovery wasn't necessarily from the illness, it was now the recovery from the treatment.

The month in hospital caused more damage to me than the stroke, but it was necessary to allow the cure to be successful. I slowly built my strength back up and returned to work - a desk job - a month later on shorter hours.

I've got a long journey to go. I'm good with many things but still struggle with some mundane stuff. I've got things that will not change and will restrict what I can do for the rest of my life. But I do have a life.

 And that is down to the good people at Hereford County Hospital.