When FAST doesn't work

Bottom left, 25th February with my little superhuman at a football game.

On the Right, 2nd March, at a hospital, 5 hours into the news that I have suffered a stroke.

Top left, 7th April, back at a football with my fave little man.

The two pictures on the left show the “after” (top) and the “before” (bottom). There’s 5 weeks and a stroke between them which, luckily for me, you wouldn’t notice.

The picture on the right is me, during the 11 hours of sitting on a chair at A&E, sharing what used to be 1 person room with 3 – 5 strangers. This photo was taken by one of the fellow cohabitants of this room as she was finding it hilarious, we were literally all in it together. Farewell privacy or comfy chair to sit at and fight the horrid headache. Welcome to the world of realising that what you see on the news is true. Sometimes anyway.

What these 5 weeks taught me is:

1.??????A stroke comes in different forms, and they may not be exactly that easy to identify. FAST failed in my case as I looked fine, I “only” had a huge headache and couldn’t move due to an excruciating pain in my head. This said, I kept working for a day after stroke happened and only went to my GP to get more painkillers. There was nothing visible that would have suggested this was IT.

2.??????No one rolls out any special treatment for you after you suffered a stroke. At least they didn’t for me. My GP wrote me a letter and told me to go to the hospital. Once you are there, you join the queue and, if you are lucky, get a half-decent chair whilst awaiting any updates for many hours (in my case, it took 11 hours and a very determined spouse – thank you Ben Purton <3 ).

3.??????Hospital stay is the most sleep depriving place and things there happen very slowly and with no or very minimal level of information. I also learned that it’s not the consultants but the junior doctors that are the main source of help, support and said information – thank you to all the junior doctors out there / here.

4.??????When you are good enough to leave, you are pretty much on your own, there’s no lifestyle advice.

5.??????There is however a discharge that says that some of the tests one requires are urgent. And that the waiting time on NHS to have them done is between 12 – 18 months (I am considering framing this part of my discharge note).

6.??????You need someone to help you with the PMI if you can’t wait those said 12-18 months to get stuff done… Again, thanks to Ben Purton whom I owe:

·??????Persevering in getting private healthcare sorted,

·??????Ensuring appointments are booked and I have everything I need,

·??????the leftovers of my sanity and much more (this also being the fact I didn’t have to stress by too many sensory experiences all of this required).

7.??????Even if your discharge note says that you are meant to be seen by young people’s stroke team within 6 to 8 weeks after leaving the hospital, that doesn’t mean you aren’t going to wait for much longer (might be true for the whole of the Country or might be a postcode lottery, I have drawn 3 months).

8.??????There are a lot of people that have had it worse than you and therefore you get up, shrug it off and move on. Slower than before but feeling lucky that there were so many variables for this going much, much worse.

9.??????Always listen to your mom. I wouldn’t have gone to the doctors if not her “home diagnosis” we initially laughed off (see point 1).

During these 6 weeks I have read 20+ books (reach out for recommendations, there’s so many great ones out there!), I slept and walked a lot and been getting used to a laptop and content on screen which still makes me dizzy (I blame pixels but also some persistent/desperate sales attempts from people that follow their previous message every day – please, stop).

I have also learnt that luck comes in different forms, we just need perspective to see it better.