The Stroke

On Sunday 3rd February 2002 I was working outside on our new trailer (an ex-MoD 3/4 ton Sankey from Witham Specialist Vehicles for those who worry about this sort of thing). I was a bit hung over as we had people around for supper the night before and between the four of us us got through five bottles of wine (including a very fine champagne) and some brandy.

Twice I had dizzy spells, to the point where I had to sit down. It's not that unusual for me to feel dizzy, but these were a bit special, and felt odd, not like something I'd had before. Neither lasted longed though so I carried on.

Beth had gone inside for a bath. I went in, and in the hall I passed out, and fell over bashing my head on the floor. Beth got out of the bath and found me lying there, grey. By the time she had a towel around her I was going blue. Beth put me into the recovery position and dialed 999. A paramedic was there very quickly (we have a fast response unit locally luckily) and initially suspected my blood/sugar was low so tried putting glucose in me intravenously.

It didn't help so after fifteen minutes he called the ambulance back and I was taken into Addenbrooke's, our local hospital. There they diagnosed a stroke.

On Monday I had a cerebral angiogram, where they inject X-ray opaque dye into your femoral artery (entering in your groin) and X-ray your brain. Shortly after the angiogram I had a seizure or fit.

Later in the week I also had an MRI scan.