Hello there,
I’m a newbie on here - passed my 3 year goal, only 7 years to go! That was bad advice though well intended.
It’s a long, harrowing, journey but on here we are together in spirit I suppose. So, I’ll say “I’m sorry” for not getting involved sooner. You never know, it might help.
So, my sordid affair was the weekend before my fateful Monday, where I had a migraine. Not the usual ‘taken myself to bed for week, with loads of drugs, to sleep it off’ kind of thing, no. It was an aura migraine, filled with weird but wonderful sights, like looking down a kaleidoscope and it developed across the weekend.
Waking to the bird singing when the migraine was gone but it has replaced with a humming in the right ear and a kind of pain inside my head, so much so I messaged my boss saying I shall take the day off to remedy myself.
It was Monday and with my wife’s blessing, I was about to order a Starbucks when I had a stroke.
About a week I was out, literally. As in, “there is no hope, leave him be” the doctors explained this to my wife and put me on the DNR, whereas the paramedics (Sarah) stood fast and hounded at them saying “I’ll drive him to the Southampton hospital”. Thank you Sarah!
Looking back, I’m sorry for my wife. When the doctors saying this way, the nurses saying that way, friends saying nothing of note, it’s up to her. I wish, when Im in the opposite position, that I’m emboldened to do the same thing for her.
Anyway, the stroke was an ischemic stroke with complications of blocked arteries (1 and partially 2) in my left brain. The brain damage was quite extensive; it’s like a large orange, slightly squished, but dead. Not me you understand, just my brain!
The journey was long and arduous but the 3 years mark, with my wife beside me, I can still do it! I still have my poorly right leg but is coming along nicely, probably 50%, but my dropped foot is rather annoying, my right arm is paralysed, and I cannot feel the whole right side, including my face. I have proper migraines now, once a month, and headaches every other day, but i have a walking stick - yippee!
All that said, I can work on the list but my voice is one at the top. I have a second list dedicated to my voice. It’s a harrowing reality check, not communicate with anybody, especially my wife.
Good days and bad days, mostly bad so I’m reaching out to you not for advice but more like kinship and sharing.
There’s more to share, but for this episode, the moral story is get your head inspected if you have an aura migraine. It might save your life!