My 'atypical' stroke

I don't really know how typical what happened to me is but it isn't the stroke that I learnt about in my many years of first aid training. I want to tell people what happened, mainly in context of warning of different symptoms, acting quickly and how lucky you can be if you do that. Having a read of the site I realise this is not really the focus, but maybe it helps family and friends who may be worrying about what could happen to them. I am feeling a bit more emotionally sensitive at the moment and already reading the words of others is helping there. It certainly hasn't changed how lucky i am feeling right now and how grateful I am to all the people who 'saved' me.

Helping to set the picture, I have just turned 55, not overweight, never smoked, light drinker, healthy diet, perfect blood pressure, blood sugar 5 to 6, cholesterol 3.5 - so none of the classic risk factors. To be honest, as an older Dad with 11 and 13 yr old sons, I want to experience as much of their lives as i can and take my health seriously. I had an Embolic Stroke where my speech was affected and within hours (without all the wires and tubes hanging off me) you would be hard pressed to spot anything wrong with me. Lots of tests to come to try and work out what happened but their are a number of likely causes. It is clear that i could have died or been permanently affected and that 'time' was the key for my lucky escape.

Busy day on Friday 29/6 running around chasing car parts for a restoration, visiting a mate of 50 yrs in palliative care with a brain tumour - back just in time to pick up kids from school and home via the Barber for a couple of haircuts. I checked a couple of emails and at about 5pm I decided to head to the shed for a bit and went from the warm house to cold outside air and felt a bit odd. I remembered i had some bits in the car and went to pull them out, still feeling odd and started to talk to myself out loud (that's usual!) and my speech was a bit funny and i felt a bit of confusion. Over nearly 30 years working in remote areas as an Ecologist, I have done many a senior first aid certificate and so I went straight into first aid mode - FAST......My Face felt normal, could smile, stick my tongue out and that all felt normal.....could easily raise both Arms and same both side, was walking strongly, could lift heavy parts from the car with full strength...... and while speech felt a bit odd it didn't seem slurred...... the T bit being about importance of time and i guess that was the trigger to go see my wife and resist the temptation to go down the shed expecting it would pass. It didn't take my wife Jo too many questions to be instantly on to the ambulance.......asked me something like "whats wrong"and i answered yes.... but very clearly! I could hear questions, having some trouble with understanding but when i went to answer odd but clear words came out, even when i had repeated goes to correct myself. While waiting for the ambos in a chair I picked up a newspaper, screwed up a page and started rubbing my hair with it - still can't explain that one but it was very deliberate and well executed and I remember doing it..... just not why! I know it was bothering me that i had worked out i would be going to hospital and my clothes were grubby - who can remember their mum saying to them 'get rid of those daggy undies - you never know when you might need to go to hospital! I kept trying to go to our room to change but Jo would sit me back down in the chair and I just couldn't make the right words come out to tell her what i was doing.

Ambulance was called 5.10 and first intervention guy was there about 5.25, but not much they can do for stroke, but the big bus was there only about 5 mins later. They observed waves of where i could say the right words and talk fairly logically and it did seem i was getting better and i guess they were thinking the clot had passed. I remember I would get excited to hear the right word come out. They got me to stand up and i walked easily unassisted to the ambulance and climbed in the side door. I started to chat away but at some stage I remember the guy looking worried and getting on his mobile and saying something like "we have lost him again". I remember hearing the rail signals at the Blackwood crossing and seeing enough that we were on the wrong side of the road by the gates with a long line of cars they must have run up the wrong side to pass. Train gone and we were off again.

Unloading at Flinders Medical Centre and there was a doctor waiting for me and they had me all wired up, ecg etc i think and lots of questions and tests but only seemed like minutes before they wheeled me around and i was going in to a CT scan machine. By now I was managing to communicate again better - I can't recall if they had already put some needles in me. Hard to track time over this period but they wheeled me back to Emergency and it seemed like instantly they were showing me an image of my brain on a screen and this big blotch where the clot was. The doctor said they had to act quickly to try and avoid permanent damage and a real danger of death. At first he was explaining they were going to do some sort of physical intervention of the clot but then he said the location was too dangerous and so they connected me to this 'clot busting' stuff in a big syringe that was mechanically slowly being put in to me. Very quickly I was having complicated conversations like nothing had happened. Jo and the kids arrived in emergency, she estimates that was no later than 6.30, and the drug was already going in. So they had been busy! The hospital is normally about a 30 minute drive from home.

They moved me up to CCU and still all wired up and constant checking throughout the night. I got a phone and rang my 90yo mum at 10pm, knowing she would be having fits, and she said she couldn't pick up any difference to a normal call from me. Just seen a speech pathologist and apart from some hesitations, which she agrees could be in part due to me being a bit rattled about what happened, i am pretty close to 100% and no reason to believe not a full recovery. If you saw me now I doubt you would spot anything.

I have to say I have been on a bit of a high ever since and while that is good for me I don't want to be insensitive to those that haven't been so lucky or lack empathy for their circumstances. I certainly felt like that in hospital in a room with 4 beds surrounded by others with great difficulties.

I am finding it a bit harder to think, particularly with multiple different things at once, sometimes searching for a word or forgetting things I don't think i would normally but early days. I am feeling a bit emotional about it all, especially when thinking about what is important to me and what could have been.

Anyway, think i better have a bit of a brain rest now but was good to get that down.