A time in hospital

Gloucestershire Royal Hospital (Wikimedia)

ad hoc post – 5

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Last Thursday, I was at home and Donna was at work tutoring maths GCSE or A level (she teaches both). I had the strangest experience. First, my left leg became weak and limp, then shortly afterwards I suffered numbness in parts of my left leg and left side of my head. It was a sensation exactly like the novocaine numbing induced by the dentist when they need to drill your teeth. Both the weakness and the numbness disappeared again after a few minutes and everything seemed normal again. About an hour later the weakness and numbness returned and resolved, once again within a few minutes. At this point I dialled 111 and after answering some questions they called an ambulance for me, thinking I might have had a temporary ischaemic attack (TIA). There were few ambulances available and the wait would be very long, so when Donna arrived home she drove to Gloucestershire Royal Hospital (GRH) and we went into A&E. After some basic tests – blood pressure, ECG, and answering some questions about my symptoms, I was admitted and given a CT scan of my head. This seemed to show a very small, superficial bleed in the brain, but the detail was not well resolved so an MRI scan was also ordered. I remained in hospital for further tests and a lot more thinking by the team looking after me.

An astonishing revelation

I was amazed to learn from the hospital specialists that I’d had an earlier, much more significant stroke on the left side of my brain, they pointed it out to me on the CT scan and it was clearly there. It might have occurred years or even decades ago and I’d known nothing about it! There was a significant region of damage but it had clearly had no effect that I was aware of at the time or since. The team also consider that I may have a couple of other, underlying conditions.

So now we know that my strange symptoms had something to do with a rather small bleed on the right side of my brain. The symptoms appeared in the left side of my body because of the curious fact that the right brain manages the left side of the body while the left brain manages the right side of the body. But the symptoms are not typical for this type of brain damage; nausea, vomiting and very painful headache are common, but I’ve had none of these effects, with sometimes a temporary, very mild headache after some (but not all) of the events so far. It seems that large strokes cause the classic symptoms, while tiny ones may result in episodic but minor issues like mine.

A knowledgable and helpful daughter

My daughter, Beth, just happens to be a Professor of Psychology at York University. Both she and the medical team here at GRH independently considered that my symptoms are atypical, but that small bleeds like mine cause episodic electrical activity that might explain my situation. The returning muscle weakness and the numbness are probably caused by the electrical activity, not by repeated subarachnoid haemorrhages. This makes a lot of sense to me. The consultant suggested that anti epilepsy drugs might suppress my symptoms as well, so we’re giving that a try. I had a small dose the evening and following morning before discharge from hospital with possible signs that it might be helping. They gave me a month’s supply to take home and after two weeks I can double the dose.

I’m home again now and starting to live a more normal life, though there are some things I can’t do now, like walking steadily for long periods of time, and driving the car.

Gallery Ward 1

I can’t finish without a word about the ward I am in and the other patients and the staff. Everyone has been so kind and helpful. The ward staff are kept very busy, taking regular blood pressure readings and responding to calls from the patients. There are only four beds in this bay of the ward, but lots of time spent on us every day.

The food is adequate, not cordon bleu, more like school meals I’d say, but hospital budgets are limited and the cloth has to be cut accordingly. I have no complaints whatsoever.

My three room mates are a mixed bag. R is in his nineties but the years rest lightly on him, he soldiers on and is really friendly, E across the other side of the ward, is hard to understand when he speaks, but is a really nice guy, incredibly fond of his daughter and grandson. They are regular visitors, his daughter is visibly distressed at times and clearly really fond of her Dad. It seems to me to be a great privilege to see these interactions. D is feeling sorry for himself and tends to become anxious and sometimes agitated if he doesn’t get the attention he thinks he needs. Like any community we’re a mixed bag, but it’s clear that we want the best for one another and want to be as encouraging as possible.

And finally, what a blessing the NHS is, one of the advantages of living in the UK, expert help when and where it’s needed, and paid for by the government through National Insurance payments and taxation.

See also:

• NHS – Wikipedia

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