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.
Quit Smoking – I Make it to Day Three Smoke Free!
I Quit Smoking 3 Days Ago! Three days on and how is it going? Well, so far I have not killed anyone, although it has been close a couple of times. I went for a walk yesterday (day 2) and while in the pub after the walk with a beer in front of me I would have walked over burning coals to get to a tobacconists. (Un)-Fortunately, there was not one in the village so the soles of my feet are unscathed. The most surprising thing as I quit smoking is that I do not miss the first cigarette of the day. When I decided to quit smoking I expected my first waking moments to be among the hardest but not at all. The moments that are the hardest are the unexpected ones. The ones while I am cooking and would normally nip out of the kitchen for a drag while something is simmering. The ones when I am listening to the radio and one programme ends and there is the chat until the next one starts. When I am listening to music. When reading and the urge comes unexpected and strident. In other words, all the bloody time without any specific triggers. How can you prepare yourself for that? All you can do is face it head on, and fall back on all those coping strategies that you have devised. Trouble is, they do not really work. What works is not smoking, just that. Not smoking until the craving subsides. Not listening to the “one will not hurt” voice that nags away at you. There is one thing that is helping me quit smoking more than I expected and that is the NHS quit smoking web site. The way to quit smoking? Not smoking, that’s all. It is also the hardest thing that you will ever do, sometimes, and the easiest thing that you will ever do at other times. The trick is to reduce the instances of the first and increase the instances of the latter. The only way to do that is by keeping on quitting, every day.
Quit Smoking – Day one
Today I Have Quit Smoking The day arrived that I had decided to quit smoking. It is a Saturday. I had decided to start on a day that allowed me to break up the usual pattern of getting up, having a cigarette, breakfast, cigarette, showering, cigarette, driving to work with a cigarette, a quick cigarette before going into work. You get the idea. A Saturday does not have the same pattern, apart from getting up and having a cigarette before doing anything else. In fact, today has been different in a number of ways. Apart from being the day to quit smoking I went for a balloon ride! That meant being up at 4.00 before driving for an hour and a quarter. Then there was the meeting all the others also going up in the balloon. Then the ascent and flight. All in all, a very different day that did not allow me to dwell on the quit smoking aspect of the day. Later I realised that I would have been the only smoker in the group of 16 flying today. Jane does not count, she has always been an “amateur” smoker, only one or two a day. She has never been a professional like me, 40 a day, smoking in all weathers. I did have my electronic with me and I used it a couple of times. However no major cravings that I can remember. When we had returned to Clitheroe I went to buy the weekend food. Normally, the first thing that I would do is to check the queue for the tobacco desk as I went in. Today I looked, but not in a checking it out sort of way. I am not saying that it has all been plain sailing. There have been moments. One of the worst was when I discovered that my electronic needed to recharge. It is charging as i write this, plugged in to the laptop. The trouble is that the charging thingy keeps showing green, but the damn thing still does not work! The shop where I bought it is shut, and will be for the next 3 days with it being a Bank Holiday, so the next few days could be awkward. And I thought that it would be a doddle to quit smoking.
Quit Smoking? Me?
I am going to quit smoking, honest! I have been smoking for 40 some years and smoke 40 a day. Not a reason to celebrate. Recently a friend was diagnosed with lung cancer and that has helped to focus my mind. So, on Saturday (well, midnight Friday) I will quit smoking. In the past I have tried, several times. However, this time it feels different. For one thing I am telling people. I have set up a savings spreadsheet to see how much I was wasting. I have an electronic cigarette to give me no excuse to buy another packet. (I don’t mind the nicotine so much as the gases and tar). I have nicotine suppressant drugs that should help wean me off all nicotine. It is a 12 week course of the drug so I hope to see my use of the e-cig decrease over time after I quit smoking. What am I looking forward to when I quit smoking? Not coughing in the morning, my first thought when I get up not being where are my fags but what shall I have for breakfast, being able to fill my lungs, deeply, when I breath in. That kind of thing. I will keep this blog up dated with my progress when I quit smoking. Oh, yes, I think I will succeed, if nothing else I really, I mean really, do not want to have to write the “Quit Smoking? I Failed” blog………….
Phil’s British Heart Foundation Donation – you know it makes sense
