Brigitta's Story

Hi I'm 62 and I suffered from a cavernoma ( bleed in the brainstem). I didn't even realise I had a stroke as I had no symptoms.
It was 6th sept, Father's Day, I went shopping with my daughter before seeing dad , felt bit off but ok. I remember my mum saying to me "don't like the look of your eyes" and when I looked at mum, she was sort of out of focus from where I was sitting.
We decided to go home and I went to bed at 1pm ( something I don't normally do) and woke at 4pm and I felt weird, I couldn't focus and I fumbled to my ensuite.
I went upstairs and had to hold onto the walls ,my daughter was watching tv and I was seeing 2 of everything and couldn't focus. I made a cuppa and kept telling my daughter I felt weird, so we tried to ring a/h dr but no luck, then tried 13Health and they were absolutely fantastic. they went thru all these questions and I remember they sounded like it was all about stroke , but all my answers were no; no this, no that and in the end the nurse had no idea. my daughter was calm thru the whole episode and in the end they advised us to go to emergency as they were totally not sure what was happening.
my trip in the car was horrendous as I was seeing lights and cars coming across the front of us and sideways so I just closed my eyes until we got there. Both my eyes had gone totally to the right and I had no control. I was admitted and had CT scan where it showed I had a bleed in the brainstem and had to have MRI to show the extent of the bleed. That was the start of my adventure, if that's what we call it!!
The Drs, nurses and everybody in emergency were absolutely fantastic . I met so many people from neurosurgeons , OT s, psychologists to Speech pathologists ( I am so grateful to have a daughter who is one of these, as the medical language to us is very foreign ) so she was in charge of my health issues.
I remember the head of neuro at Gold Coast uni hospital had never seen this cavernoma in the 10 yrs that he had been there so no one knew what was going to happen or how long I would be like this.
My balance was totally gone and I was always falling to the right, my right eye went into a palsie gaze and my left eye centred itself after 3days in hospital, but my balance was still crap.
After 4 days in hospital I went to rehab Carrara and that was the start of another journey.
I don't think they knew what to do with me , so it was mainly doing eye exercises to hopefully get my sight to some normality.
I remember the inpatients called the OEC (over eighties club) asking me why I was there as I didn't look like a stoke victim. Anyway after a few days I got a bad viral infection on my chest and that was the start of another onset of a bleed due to the constant coughing and I wasn't able to have any medication except pandadol (which I may add does nothing for a cough).
Few days being confined to my room as not to infect the other patients , my daughter noticed that I had a facial droop on my left hand side , so the doctor was consulted and speech therapist was brought in ,and the next thing back at hospital to have a scan done and was admitted as I had a second bleed, so another few days with more tests etc MRI, and then to be told not much we can do.
So I decided to go home and get on with my life, as that's all I could do .
Now it is January 2016 and my progress has been great!!
I had rehab ,I have had few dark moments with lots of crying , but the support with my family and handful of lovely friends, I am now in a better place .
The morning of the 17th October I found when I woke up that I could see single vision in my right eye and it had moved back to the middle , like the doctors said you could wake up one morning and see.
That was incredible!! I jumped out of bed looked in the mirror and just burst out crying!
I ran into my daughters bedroom and just stood there , then she realised I was looking straight at her ( unbelievable! ) That was the start .
Most days we would go to the beach and just walk, usually me holding onto my daughters arm and then I had a walking stick when we went shopping just so I could be a little bit independent.
Gradually I got steadier and more confident and now after 4months pretty much walking on my own but am a bit slow . My left eye still has some issues as I have double vision in there and I think that's how it is going to be , so last time I went to the opthomologist they started trialling me with a prism patch on my sunglasses , wow , how awesome are they??
At first I thought I would never get used to them but now after 6 weeks I see normal with it and i go back again next week to see what the verdict is.
My only thing is that I can't drive which stops me from returning to my job that I miss and I'm very house bound, hence my daughter kristy has been absolutely amazing .
That's all for today, but I will keep you updated.
But one thing is don't give up.
I have appreciated every day and it brings everything about life to perspective and I always think there are other people out there worse off than me.
I have even started doing little bit of volunteer work again with my lovely daughter.