My Stroke 4 – The aftermath
It is 6 months, to the day (13 June 2018) since my stroke. There are a couple of niggling outcomes from my stroke, like not being able to drink a cup of coffee without there being a small drip down the side of the cup. (My mouth does not form a complete seal). On the other hand the day after my stroke I could not even swallow coffee without choking, so it is all relative. Of more concern are my eyesight and the feeling in my right leg and foot. If you want you can read the full story starting here. My Eye Sight. My stroke left me with double vision. As everything else improved after my stroke I hoped that my eyesight would as well. There has been some improvement but I still have double vision that is corrected by a special, temporary, prism that is added to one of the lenses in my glasses. For day to day life this is fine but whenever I take my glasses off the double vision returns. Swimming on holiday was difficult, so is getting out of bed in the morning before I find my glasses! There may a resolution to the double vision problem. I am due to see the consultant on 14th December. I hope that he will agree that an operation is possible. The operation involves tightening muscles at the back of my left eye to correct the vision. I talked to a doctor about it a couple of months ago. He said that the good thing was that they can ask you if the vision is fixed and if not tighten or loosen the muscle as required. When I asked what he meant he said, ”well, obviously, you will be awake while they do the operation”. WHAT!? As if having a stroke was not bad enough, they are going to be fiddling with my eye, with scalpels and things, while I watch? Bloody Hell! My Right Foot and Leg A couple of days after my stroke the doctor took me to a wash basin and put my left hand under the running cold tap. “What does that feel like?” “Cold.” Then my right hand under the same cold water. “What does that feel like?” “Hot!!” Very odd. That was not all, while I could feel pressure in the whole of my right side from the neck down I could not feel pain. I could stick a pin in my shoulder or pinch myself, and all I could feel was a vague feeling. I would know that something was pushing against my skin but that is all. Over the next few weeks the numbness retreated until it was only my right leg and foot that was numb although the difference in heat perception remained. Imagine being under a shower and half of you feeling scolding hot and half of you icy. It does make showering interesting, especially if you test the temperature of the shower with the wrong hand, the cold hand. You step into a shower that is hot enough to take your skin off! THis effect is typical of a lateral medullary stroke. It seemed to please the doctors no end as they kept bringing their friends to stick pins in me and put my hand into cold water. Apparently this type of stroke is quite rare and they all wanted a go at pin sticking! Numb but still painful! The numbness has gone but it has been replaced by overactive nerve endings in my foot and ankle. This means that whenever I put socks on or shoes all the nerve endings in my foot all start shouting at the same time. Not exactly painful but nearly. Stepping on uneven ground in thin soled shoes is like some form of non marking torture! As for going on to the sea on holiday! I went on holiday a month or so after my stroke. Going into the water was very difficult. The hot sand was refreshingly cool (if I hopped on my right foot). The water was nicely warm, for one leg. Then all the nerve ends in my right foot and leg decided to announce that they were surrounded in water, all at the same time and continuously. The first time it happened I fell over! I have no idea what the other people on the beach thought. I was wearing an eye patch and falling over in the water while trying to hop on the sand. No wonder I was given some odd looks! The future I am pleased with how things have gone after my stroke, It could have been so much worse, and is for most people who have a stroke. I am not belittling the issues and problems that some people experience after a stroke. They can be life affecting and limiting. I realise just how lucky I have been. I am only marginally incompasitated and still feel that glad to be alive feeling every morning. How to cope with a loved one who has has a stroke.
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.
Can a Privatised NHS Work?
The first NHS Hospital to be taken over by a Private Company Fails. Hinchingbrooke Hospital, Huntingdon, Cambridgeshire was privatised in 2012 although the process started in 2009 under the last Labour government. The agreement was that Circle would take over the hospital from the NHS and any profits above £5m would be returned to the NHS. The trouble is that that there were no profits, just losses. Admittedly, the Losses started at £10m in 2012 and fell to £1.5m in March 2013. However, the NHS is not something that can be made to comply to “the market”. People get sick at odd times, mainly during the winter. Just because more people are ill does not mean that prices go up. The laws of capitalism do not apply. As a capitalist you can cut costs, reduce wages, reduce the number of jobs etc. but that does not help when the CQC ( Care Quality Commission) are on your back and the numbers going to A&E are going through the roof. All you can do is to suck it up – or ditch the whole thing, as Circle has decided to do. As much as I hated the idea of any company running a hospital I can not but feel a bit of sympathy, not much but some, for Circle. They take on a proposition that looks like it will make a profit only to find that the Tories, their natural partners in crime (it’s an expression, not a judgement!) start cutting the funding…. On top of that the impending CQC report would have criticised the standard of health care demanding better service levels. That is so unfair. Circle says that its funding has been cut by 10%. It is unreasonable to expect any organisation faced with increased demand to be able to cope with reduced funding at this level. Unless it is the NHS, of course. Circle can hand back the keys. The NHS is just told to do more with less by this heartless and BUPA insured government. (You don’t really think that the boy Cameron uses the NHS, unless it makes a good story n the press do you? So, when can the private sector run the NHS successfully? It is quite simple, Never.
Phil’s British Heart Foundation Donation – you know it makes sense
