Looking back on reflection, I find it quite remarkable that for three months I was having strokes and didn’t even realise they were strokes. I was misdiagnosed with BPPV and for three months that is what I thought I had. The symptoms were unpleasant, as they are now, but I was flippant about it all because BPPV is benign and curable. It’s funny looking back, thinking how I got on with my daily activities, used a cane, and cussed the “BPPV” symptoms but they never really gave me proper anxiety, accept when my condition became prolonged. That’s when the red flag started to appear and I went back to the GP only to be reassured it was BPPV. I didn’t entirely take her word for it but pressed on regardless. When I had the fourth stroke that saw me in A&E, afterwards my whole perception changed. Indeed, my condition was a lot worse, I had deteriorated greatly, but the core symptoms of wobbliness and disorientation were the same as I had over those three months, yet my perception changed dramatically due to knowing I had had a stroke.
Nothing profound in this post, just a curious little thought that came to me today as I walked my dog.
Truly unbelievable how medical people can get it more than a wee bit er wrong, only one stroke but was admitted twice in 48 hours and strangely enough on the first admission was told to go home and wait for a scan.
The 48 hours after walked about with my left arm completely dead, boy a dead arm sure weighs some. It was when I could barely speak and smile it was time to be admitted. Fast forward 9 months and back in another hospital after assessment was fine stress and overdoing it at work.
Was asked why I simply wasn’t given the clot buster at first ever admission, I repeated back verbatim the consultant orthopods advice. Why’d you listen to him? Well he said the scan was fine what would you do, mmm probably like you go home. Sometimes this just goes through my head as could never ever figure another answer. Now don’t ever really dwell as think life is for living.
I wonder sometimes if nothing something makes us worse whereas like you say you had same symptoms prior to knowing you had a stroke ans just carried on.
It’s something I often wondered about with cancer as I have come across a few people who bimbled along in ignorance seemingly ok but once they got a diagnosis went downhill quickly. Could never decide if it was pure coincidence or not.
I’m not sure if it’s generational depending on age - but I tried my best to carry on until I could’t but as a kid was told unless I was dead I was fine for school, PE which I loved and later as a teenager sent to work with pneumonia and told it would clear in a few days. Being a child of the 70’s was rewarding in it’s own unique way, I work with kids now and they think a headache merits a 999 call.
Hmmm, I’m always a little skeptical of generational zeitgeist as it’s so subjective. My father as a baby boomer always exclaimed the tough and stoic nature of his generation, yet I’m sure many other generations may feel the same and if one delves broadly into history and culture, one finds it hard to archetype people in this way. I’m sure my father’s generation had plenty of people who weren’t tough and stoic, but unlikely to make it a point of pride or comparison. Just my opinion of course.
Speaking as a Boomer, tough and stoic was the only way to be because nobody cut you any slack, and alternatives were thin on the ground. It woulbe be much harder, for instance, for someone from nowadays to adjust to living without hot water or central heating or indoor loos, or no bathrooms, because they have known what it is like to have these things. We didn’t. And I shall never take any of them for granted.
It’s a good point, but I still err that it is not necessarily iconic of a particular generation. Even now, in parts of the world people don’t have these luxuries. I think people adapt and adjust to circumstance, just as with stroke, stroke affects many generations but how we manage it is idiosyncratic, some people are more stoic than others. My father’s case is interesting as he was an RAF man and his brother was a civil engineer, but despite being of the same generation, having lived the same family and social life, my uncle was the opposite of stoic and my father always let him know it. I very much doubt though my father, from war baby to today, would find it easy to live without the luxuries he’s now become accustomed to.
This kind of topic blows my mind, I remember reading some work by Bertrand Russell and having my brain sent spiralling until all I wanted to do was thump my chest and run through the woods, yowling. I find it utterly fascinating.
