Fourteen years (almost to the hour as I post this) since The Cerebro-Vascular Accident.
I wrote about it on Facebook in 2010 for the first anniversary of the event, and I’ve just cut and pasted that here cos it doesn’t need to be newly rewritten or anything, I’ve just added a couple of links. Also, before you read this, maybe take this on board first:
https://www.healthdirect.gov.au/stroke
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I woke up around ten to seven on the morning of June 9th last year unable to feel my left arm. At first I thought I’d just gone to sleep on it and it had gone numb (this having happened to me in the past when I’ve had more to drink the night before than I should’ve done), so I rolled off it and over to my right.
It was when I noticed I couldn’t feel my left leg either that I realised the problem was a lot worse than I’d first thought. Somewhere between the hours of 2 AM (when I’d gone to bed) and 6.50 AM (when something caused me to stir) I had a stroke.
Needless to say I freaked when I realised what must’ve happened; fortunately Mum heard, called an ambulance immediately and within about 15 minutes I was en route to Prince of Wales Hospital at Randwick, not exactly appreciating the fact that this was pretty much going to become my world for the next two and a half months.
After being put through an assortment of tests, including an MRI scan that showed this was far from the first stroke I’d had (there were signs of damage from an unknown number of other strokes, which were so small I didn’t even feel them), I found my strength gradually coming back to me over the course of the day. By the afternoon, when I needed to go for a piss, I could even get from the bed I’d been moved into and walk down the corridor to the bathroom and back to relieve myself. The morning had been scary but it didn’t look like the outcome would be too bad.
At least, it didn’t until I had another stroke sometime between four and five PM.
And THAT, kids, is what I really spent the next two and a half months in hospital overcoming.
Could’ve been worse, though.
This might strike some of you as an odd thing to say given how bad it actually was, and I don’t wish to downplay what was often the horror of the situation. The complete removal of dignity, the mental effort being even worse than the physical, the fear that things weren’t going to get better… to say nothing of the food, obviously… But, really, as bad as things were, they could’ve been much worse. Let me enumerate some of the ways…
1. Apart from those few days I was on the neurology ward, I had a room to myself that I didn’t need to share with other people. I don’t know if I could’ve tolerated it otherwise. When you’re a natural solitary like me who likes his privacy, this is a major thing.
2. Thanks to Joe I had access to the outside world via the EEE PC and the mobile broadband thing. I wasn’t cut off from other people, I could tell them what had happened and all that. I was saved from isolation. The computer was the greatest thing on Earth when I couldn’t pass time by reading a book because I couldn’t actually hold a book open.
3. The stroke affected the left side of the body. My right side has always been dominant anyway. I’m right-handed so unlike some of my fellow inmates (one of whom was a former Olympic gold medallist) I didn’t have to learn how to write again. And I don’t think I ever really lost sensation down the left side, just the strength to move it.
4. Also, it didn’t affect my sight, my hearing, or (the first couple of days aside) my speech. I could understand others and make myself understood. Again, this was a lot more than could be said for several of the folks in the rehab ward.
5. IT DIDN’T KILL ME OUTRIGHT. Stroke is the second leading cause of death in the west and kills more people than cancer. I could very easily not be here now to write these words.
Which is why I constantly tell myself how lucky I really was.
I’m at the point where I’m probably not going to recover much more, and there are certain things I may never be able to do again (e.g. running), and one of the more irritating after-effects has been that I can’t remember how I used to do those things (when I was still paralysed, I’d think about things like, you know, climbing stairs, and I’d be unable to imagine how I ever did them cos I was in a state where I couldn’t have done them. To some extent this is still true). I’m a lot slower than I used to be and there’s other mobility issues apart from that, plus there’s still only so much I can do with the left hand (alas, a joke I made about having to learn to wank right-handed wound up not being a joke after all). Still, at least I can walk and I can type with both hands, I can *read* again cos I can use both hands to hold a book, that sort of thing. Really, I recommend everyone have a life-changing medical emergency like this. You’d be amazed at how much you take things like being able to walk for granted.
So I’m still here. Celebrate as you see fit.
