The Science

As I understand it there are, in essence, two sorts of stroke. Most people get the other which is where you get a blockage in the blood supply somewhere. What I had was a intracerebral hemorrhagic stroke, which is where a blood vessel bursts and leaks into the brain. On top of that it appears that I had some bleeding on the surface of my brain (I think that's called a subarachnoid hemorrhage), probably as a result of the fall.

Why I had this stroke remains something of a mystery at present. For someone of my (relatively) young age it's often a symptom of something else like a tumour (hence the number of scans we suspect) but it seems not in this case thank goodness.

Other possible causes include high blood pressure (which I don't have), stress (which I certainly did have at that time, for a variety of reasons), high salt diet (well, fairly, but that's mainly its effect on blood pressure, which was OK), excess cholesterol (don't think so), obesity/unfitness (nope), and smoking (not since about 1983!).

My theory is that I may have caused it via a combination of taking aspirin fairly frequently in the weeks before (I had a problem with my right ankle) and the booze.