Soo, here we go again, I am trying to raise some more money for the Stroke Association. Yes, again(sorry).

Yes, you may have heard the story, or a version of the story before, however, in my opinion, I will never be able to raise enough awareness or money for this cause and only 2 weeks ago, I got the email to say I'd made it to the top of the waiting list to run the London Marathon.  To be honest I'd bloody forgotten I was on it but was ecstatic nonetheless. 

For this reason, I wanted to share the warts and all story of what actually happened to me during my own stroke and subsequent recovery.  WARNING– THIS STORY CONTAINS SOME GRAPHIC DETAILS but I hope that maybe one day it might help someone else to recognise the signs and be able to help someone.  So here goes:

On the first day of half term (very important to note as I teach) I was out with Tone for some celebratory cocktails and a nice dinner; 

“B, you're not holding my hand properly”. 

This first sign was that my hand had gone completely numb and I had no idea what it was doing.  As far as I was aware I was just walking along,hands to myself - after all, Tone is a hater of PDA so why would we be holding hands in public?

The next sentence to come out of my mouth was probably the weirdest sensation of the entire escapade. My brain knew exactly what I wanted to say but I could not physically open my mouth to say it. “Mmffpffhhh”.  A frightening and bizarre 30 seconds followed where nothing seemed to be working.  And then, as if by magic,everything went back to normal. It transpires that this was actually a mini-stroke (otherwise known as a TIA – more on that later).

We arrived at the restaurant for dinner and, after some debate, called 111 to see if this was ‘normal’. To be honest, they couldn't really shed any light at this stage but a splitting migraine ensued and we left dinner to go home. What followed at home was unpleasant to say the least and I ended up vomiting for the next 12 hours. Yum yum. 

Obviously I stayed in bed most of the next day and the real action (if I should call it that) began just after midnight that night.

I awoke needing a wee  and tried to get out of bed. My neck was really hurting and as I put weight onto my shoulder to get up, I kept falling back down onto the bed.  To me, my neck was just hurting and that was why I couldn't get up.  Looking back I guess I was a little naive and foolish but tomato tomarto. 

What does one do when they can't get up? Call for help, ring the house phone or perhaps text your mum?  Well, if you’re as stubborn as I am, you do none of these.  Instead, quite obviously,you roll off the bed and ‘army crawl’ to the toilet (naive, foolish and really rather dumb apparently!)

Not wanting to scare Mum,I made my way on my belly across the landing and half pulled myself up using the towel rail. At this point, Mum - who was awaiting my brother coming home from a night out for his birthday- heard the commotion and made her way out of her bedroom to investigate. She immediately called 999.

It all gets a bit hazy here, but I’m told we  had a very quick adventure in an ambulance and made it from Basingstoke to Southampton General in roughly 15 minutes. My first real memory on arrival is of an awful drunk student who had soiled herself in A&E and was laughing at the nurses having to deal with her. Aside from them saving my life and getting me to a hospital with a specialist brain unit in under 30 minutes; the atrociousness of said student’s situation and the calm manner in which it was being dealt with cemented my belief that the NHS are absolute heroes in every sense of the word. 

As the night went on, I lost more feeling and movement in my left side and by morning was completely paralysed on this side. I had to take an eating test to see if I could manage to do it still without choking myself. The horror and shock of being subjected to such a test meant I accidentally coughed when eating, therefore, miserably failing the test. In went the feeding tube (second most atrocious event of the debacle) and I wish I could say off fell the pounds. Sadly though, I couldn't hack the pain of it for longer than about 24 hours so out it came and there was no silver lining there either. 

So I had a little stay in Southampton (excellent food menu choices and ever such friendly staff) for about 3 days whilst they tried to discover the trigger for the stroke. The doctors/physios/OT were all fantastic and openly quite surprised to have someone my age on the ward.  My favourite moment (sorry to any men reading) had to be when the OT took me to the loo and when pulled my knickers down there was blood in them (no pill you see) she beamed 'Oh! we don't get those very often!' and she hurried off to fetch some feminine products. You may wonder why on earth I would include such a ghastly detail, but it was moments like that that really helped me laugh in the face of adversity. 

Doing anything at this stage was painful and a hell of a lot of effort. When you re-learn to walk or lift your arm or do anything, it takes hours and hours of tiny, tiny fine-motor practise. Touching my thumb to each finger became incredibly boring, but it was one of the first skills I got back. Walking was horrendous - lifting my left leg felt like I was dragging an elephant along behind me. Luckily though, I was fairly fit and I was able to retrain my brain so once the main movements were mastered, it fell into place quicker than some. 

After my scans came back,the doctors worked out that I had a blocked carotid artery in the right side of my neck. For some reason (possibly the contraceptive pill) my blood was thicker than was normal, causing a clot which blocked the artery and led to the TIA and then the full-on stroke. Luckily, I was transferred to Basingstoke Hospital (less exciting menu choices) so that I could be closer to home and continued my recovery there. After only 3 or 4 days, the team came to announce that I was the perfect candidate for early discharge. That meant I could continue recovering at home and the physio would come and visit everyday. Mum and Dad hurried to move my bedroom into the dining room (stairs were still a problem)and I was able to leave for home. 

Dad became the taskmaster, ensuring I did the mundane exercises (tapping my foot on a cone,tapping my thumb to every finger etc) and had many a game of buckeroo with me. After 3 weeks of hard work and a huge amount of luck, I was miraculously completely discharged. 

However, my stroke story didn't end there.Although I made a 'full' recovery, everyday I grapple with my unsensitive, claw of a left hand. I lost a child on sports day for a good 5 minutes once, only to turn around and realise he had been holding my hand the entire time but my left hand couldn't feel his light touch. I also grip either far too hard or far too lightly and cannot really feel what I am doing with it but these are the things that are relatively easy to live with.  I am also prone to short-term memory ‘challenges’ which often result in me forgetting where I have put things down or when I have had conversations with people (this really winds Tone up).

What is the most difficult is the mental side of it. Each day, my first thought is, 'ok good I didn't have another stroke in the night' usually followed by some face movements to check I can still do that and a clenched left fist just in case. I am plagued everyday by the fact that my artery is still blocked (it didn't clear up after 6 months so is apparently unlikely to) and the swallowing thoughts of what if it happens again? It can be mentally tiring and is made worse when I am physically tired. (Good job a marathon doesn't take much training :/)  

Talking is important and whilst I have told my story here in the first person, what is more important is that there is always someone there to help you. Family and friends were hugely helpful for me but in reality, many stroke victims don’t have the support network I did.  The Stroke Association are there for these people and provide amazing support both physically and mentally to thousands of stroke sufferers nationwide. 

I hope that nobody is offended by my light-hearted tone, and please don't get the impression that it was all a joke, it is just my way of dealing with things. 

If you feel you could help, please pop a little donation into the pot, but if not, I hope my story might someday help you to recognise the symptoms and help someone.Remember: 

F - face

A - arms

S - Speech 

T - Time

Thank you and congratulations for making it this far!!

Bex

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