My Stroke – Anniversary (2)
My Stroke Now In this post I want to explore how I feel now about my stroke, how it affects my life and what the future holds. There are 5 main areas that have been affected by my stroke. Vision I have double vision because my stroke weakened the muscles to one eye. That is corrected by having a prism in one lens of my glasses. The vision is blurred because of the nature of the temporary prism. Day to day I have normal, if blurred sight. The trouble is without them I still have double vision, so showering is difficult, waking up I cannot see the clock clearly and activities like swimming are difficult. The prognosis? Originally, I was told that I could have an operation that would tighten the muscles of my right eye. To be honest, I really did not fancy being awake while the surgeon operated on my eye. Over time, the limitations of having a prism in my glasses became obvious. I came to feel that an operation was the way forward. It now seems that my eye muscles have become stronger and that the operation may not be an option anymore. My double vision may be something that I have to live with. The other big effect that my stroke has had had on my vision is loss of depth perception. That means that although that can see that I am walking up to a curb I have no idea whether the curb is 4 inches high or 1. I tend to stumble, a lot. Still an issue, and probably always will be. Walking I could only walk with a stick after my stroke. I really did not want that to be the case. Supported and encouraged by Lauren from the Occupational Health team I practiced walking, with the stick. Together we walked miles through the corridors of the hospital, and I began to get pretty cocky, it would not be long until I ditched the stick. Lauren kept reminding me that the corridors in hospital are flat, no curbs, no uneven pavements, no potholes. I should have listened more. Leaving hospital, I decided that I would walk a few miles each day in order to be able to ditch the stick. The first few times I walked into town, which I did every day, were difficult. Yes, there were curbs, uneven pavements, and potholes. Each day was a new challenge. However, 10 days after my stroke I ditched the stick! Success!! Leg and Knee Problems Immediately after my stroke I had sensory problems down my right side, you can read about them in my previous post. The issues resolved themselves relatively quickly for my upper body, but my leg and foot have taken longer and the problems persist to a lesser extent. I still have nerves firing when I put on socks and shoes, but at least now it is not painful. My foot sometimes tells me that it is hot, but it no longer feels like it is on fire. One aspect that came to the fore a couple of months ago was the loss of strength in my right leg. I began to have pains in my knee. They were not related to my stroke; most likely it is arthritic in origin. The upshot is that I have begun to exercise to build up the knee muscles and reduce the pain. (Which is going very well, thanks for asking). What has been revealed to me is that my right leg is way less strong than my left, as a result of my stroke. I would not have known this or that I was favouring my right leg unless I had started to exercise. The benefit is that future leg and hip problems may well be avoided Another success! Speech After my stroke I had speech problems. One side of my face did not work so explosive sounds like “b” or “p” were almost impossible. I rang my boss at work from the hospital to say that I was still alive and to say that I had some bananas in my desk drawer and that he had better move them before the went off and smelled. You can imagine how difficult that conversation was, if only I had to tell him that I had something else, like chocolate or sweets in my drawer! One odd thing, or not, was that I could never hear that my speech was affected. To me, I sounded normal. As the left side of my face decided to work again my speech started to be clearer. There were issues, for example, about a month after my stroke I rang the doctor’s office to ask for a repeat prescription. The woman on the end of the phone was very curt and impatient. She said that she could not understand me to which my reply was “I am not bloody surprised; I have just had a bloody stroke!” Her attitude changed. Even now I have some issues when speaking but no where as bad as they were. A partial success! Mind , Memory, and Depression after My Stroke The problem with mind and memory issues is that they are internal and not obvious to others. When I “ditched the stick” it was obvious to everyone and Jane and friends all complimented me and said how well I was doing. With mind and memory issues it is so difficult to gauge progress, if any. One result of my stoke, as for many who suffer a stroke, was I descended into depression, again. I had only just come off the medication and I was pleased that I was recovering. Over night I was in that dark place, again. I have written about depression here. Since my stroke I feel that I have been recovering and quietly stopped the medication a couple of weeks ago. I have not told anybody. Why not? Because when I stopped before I paid too much
My Stroke – Anniversary (1)
Was My Stroke Really a Year Ago? On this day last year (13th June) I suffered my stroke which started as I drove to work. You can read about it here, here, here, and here. Looks like I am beginning to become a stroke bore when the truth is that I rarely think about my stroke during normal life. However, I wanted to be able to spend some time reviewing where I am, where I think will go next, and how I view the past year. This photo was taken, I think, 3 days after my stroke. Not a pretty sight with one half of my face sliding down and declaring UDI from my brain. It was the left side of my face that slipped, in case you can not tell…. My Stroke was Unusual My stroke was of a variety called Lateral medullary syndrome. who knew that there were different types of stroke? I thought that a stoke was a stroke. If you want to you can read about Lateral medullary syndrome here. Here is a bit from that article; “This syndrome is characterized by sensory deficits that affect the trunk and extremities contralaterally (opposite to the lesion), and sensory deficits of the face and cranial nerves ipsilaterally (same side as the lesion). Specifically a loss of pain and temperature sensation if the lateral spinothalamic tract is involved. The cross body finding is the chief symptom from which a diagnosis can be made. “Patients often have difficulty walking or maintaining balance (ataxia), or difference in temperature of an object based on which side of the body the object of varying temperature is touching.[2] Some patients may walk with a slant or suffer from skew deviation and illusions of room tilt. The nystagmus is commonly associated with vertigo spells. These vertigo spells can result in falling, caused from the involvement of the region of Deiters’ nucleus.” What did that mean? Well, one very odd effect was that although it was the left side of my face that fell it was the right side of my body that was affected. For me it meant that although I could feel pressure if someone poke my right side it would feel the same if they stuck a needle into me, i.e. I felt no pain. To me hot felt cold on my right side. Imagine how that felt when I showered. My left side felt the water as hot, my right felt as if I was having a cold shower! Later, my right side felt as if all the nerve endings all fired whenever my right leg and foot touched anything. For example putting my sock on my right foot was painful because all the nerves fired at once. putting a shoe on was a slow and painful experience and so on. A couple of moths later I went on holiday and fell over when I walked into the sea because I could not cope with all the sensations from my right leg and foot! The next post will cover the 5 main areas where I have been affected. Not all stoke sufferers are affected the same way, as I now appreciate. Shame that it took me having my stroke to open my eyes! For more information about strokes visit http://stroke.org.uk
My Stroke – I Have Had Better Wednesdays – Part 1
No One Expects the Spanish Inquisition, or A Stroke. My stroke. Wednesday 13th June 2018. A perfectly normal day. I was looking after Meg, a golden Labrador for her mum, Di, had gone on holiday with Jane. I had fed Meg, given her a walk, and then taken her to her house for the day. It was 7.45 and I had half an hour before I had to start work. Just time enough to buy food the evening meal. I was going to have Lamb with smoked aubergine and minty broad beans. I was looking forward to making a new recipe. Driving away from Tesco I suddenly had double vision which cleared after 10 minutes. Although I did not know it, my stroke had started. I drove on to work, feeling none the worse for the double vision episode. Was I worried? Not at all, I had experienced double vision before. That I put it down to one of the known side effects of Sertraline, my anti depression medication. I drove into work and parked up and the double vision started again. Again, I waited for a few minutes and when it passed I clocked into work, 8.20 5 minutes late, BUGGER! My Wednesday, it gets worse. Up the stairs and into the office. “Mornings” all round. Victoria looked up and asked me if I was OK. I said something about me having one of my dizzy and double vision episodes and that it would pass, as it had in the past. Then the double vision returned and I knew that I could not stand up without falling over, this was going to be a bad day. Victoria kept looking at me, obviously a bit concerned. By this time I was as well. I held my arms out in front of me, no weakness there, so I knew that it wasn’t a stroke and I said as much, laughing, to Victoria. However, the words did not come out properly. I stopped for a few seconds and said to Victoria, ” Is my speech slurred?” She said yes and I said I think that you had better phone the first aider. Even as I said it I knew that it was a stroke and there was nothing I could do to alter what was about to happen. Everyone Else Looks Worried Geoff, the first aider was with me within a couple of minutes and almost immediately said “call and ambulance”. He knew that it was a stroke and confirmed that when I asked. He stayed with me, asking all the right questions and keeping me calm. Although I already felt calm. There was nothing that I could do. Besides there were enough worried people in the office without me adding to the number. I wanted to stay calm so that I could tell the para medics exactly what I was feling. They needed to have the right information as quickly as possible. It actually did not occur to me that they probably could not understand what I was saying….. One of the many bad things about having a stoke is that your brain works (or you think that it does) but holding a conversation can be impossible. The upshot was that I had a list of symptoms and observations in my head but could not make anyone understand. I also thought that it was all rather unfair. I had stopped smoking (with a couple of slip ups) 10 months previously. Very unfair! At some point I realised that this was going to be a seriously bad Wednesday. For more information about strokes visit http://stroke.org.uk Be sure to check out how to recognise when someone is having a stroke and what tom do here.
Phil’s British Heart Foundation Donation – you know it makes sense
