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Sammy Anne

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Sammy Anne last won the day on July 31 2015

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About Sammy Anne

  • Birthday September 22

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    France

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  1. Thank you so much Jess, Kempse and Macca for being there and for your support and advice. I'm so tired I just can't think but it helps when other people like you come up with new ideas or confirm ideas of mine which I have doubted, so thanks again. My daughter is away, I can do nothing, everyone here is afraid of judges, won't say boo to a goose, my head hurts, I miss her, I just feel so tired. You know what it's like when one thing goes belly up ... so does everything else and for the last five years I'd say, life has been an dreadful uphill struggle with no light at the end of the tunnel. I have noone I trust to leave my daughter if anyone were to happen to me to so have no fear my intentions are just to get better and win the battle, but it's hard with this head ache and tiredness all the to think straight, to remember things which I'd rather not remember in order to prepare the next stage and just generally take care of my health - the French Security Agency said when I was in hospital the Baclofen was safe, no recorded incidents etc ... my eye! Now everyone is putting their prescription in the bin. Hence my fear that a Psy hasn't the pharmacological clinical knowledge that he needs when prescribing antideps to a stroke patient. And yes there is no support. My family is a dysfunctiojnal one and the few elements in it that seemed sane have changed sides and done their best to damage my case. The fun happy memories of childhood ... that's why I stayed so long, thinking things would change, get better and that we'd gain time till she was ten when she'd be stronger and more able to face a divorce but her father left me no choice when he started threatening to burn and electrocute her .... the next morning we fled days short of her sixth birthday. It has been suggested that I follow an EMDR therapy, which is great but unavailable and I really think my daughter needs emotional support and psy help more than me.
  2. Hi all, Some of you might recall that one year after my NASAH (7 weeks in hospital from 2 June 2015) I had to flee my home with my daughter (she was nearly 6 at the time) following ongoing and finally very frightening domestic violence against us both. We were homeless and penniless and travelling in a car without brakes but at least we were free of the violence and threats. After my return from hospital I felt progressively that my husband was trying to drive me towards a second stroke with the pressure and fear he made us live in. What has happened since defies all logic and humanity. I have had to change lawyer four times imperilled by their incompetence and dishonesty and conniving with the enemy lawyer and the judge. Every penny of my security, has gone into legal fees and basic survival costs since fleeing in July 2016. My daughter (she has just turned 8 is now, ordered by a judge to spend one weekend out of two with her father and half the school vacation. She is alone with him and he does not admit his past violence, on the contrary ,he is full of scorn and denial, and he is starting again, My daughter is not allowed (indeed she is too frightened to talk to me on the phone or on her return) to talk about what happens when she is with him and she is the even too frightened to tell me everything when she returns home to me.. Progressively he is making it impossible for us to communicate when she is with him (she has her own mobile phone), cutting her off, lying to her, frightening her, manipulating her, using her fear which she thinks he doesn't see to control her (and to control me), her fear is palpable on the phone, sometime she runs away and whispers mummy i have to go i'm afraid and hangs up. He records our conversations and forces her to speak only on hands free. I was at least granted my request by the court to have a psychiatric enquiry carried out in a last resort hope that this professional would be perhaps the only one to see through my husband's facade, most narcissists are able to convince anyone of anything and he is a very gifted manipulator. This is just the tip of the iceberg unfortunately. I've had four car accidents since January none of which were my fault and the last one was very serious as it happened at high speed on the motoway when someone ran into the back of my daughter and me (wrecking our new car) and pushing us into the car in front (whiplash again, the fourth in 10 years I think). After two months at the garage the car is finally back on the road. I am living on disability, have lost 40 pc of my income and have no help from my husband for my daughter. I'm afraid to even open the post box because I know that soon we will be so in debt that we risk becoming homeless. The one and only wonderful person who tried everything to help us died in the night of July 17th, an old soldier, for whom I did a translation about the liberation of Paris in 1944. We are prisoners in this country. Everybody says French justice NEVER finds for the foreign parent, NEVER. All foreigners are treated like illegal migrants we are unequal before the law. Here they would rather the violent French parent keep custody of the child. I'm now out of of funds completely to fight back legally, I did take a loan with v high interest rates but I can't get more because noone will insure bankloans for people who have had serious health issues hence banks and financial institutions refuse to lend. My husband is still sitting in our equally and jointly bought flat (normally anyone with any morals would have moved out so his wife and child could move back in and be safe till the sale went through), he is insisting on a very high sale price so the flat wont sell, so he can stay in it longer, for years maybe, so he can bankrupt me completely by eating up the little capital I have in that flat (we still have 16 years payments to make on that mortgage to the bank). He has managed to make people believe that I am paranoid, manipulative and overprotective as a result of brain damage amongst other things, family, friends, all the violence happened behind closed doors, there are never spectators to these fights (which actually were most of the time provoked by me preventing him abusing my daughter psychologically or physically). My psychiatrist insists on me taking antidepressants saying that I am in the grip of a major depression (which for me is organic, if our problems could be resolved then I'd be fine again). It is true that I would like to have the courage to walk under a train or just swallow everything I can get my hands on, because the pain and fear and guilt of being forced to hand over my daughter AGAINST her will to her father following the court order (and everyone here is terrified of judges, nobody ever contradicts them or even interrupts them to properly defend their clients in court) and knowing she is AFRAID of him, is so great, that I don"t know how to continue living. The Embassy can not help. The Irish Embassy in Paris. We are prisoners in this country (the court placed my daughter on the "wanted" list in order to prevent me taking her to the UK or Ireland to safety temporarily). They basically put my mental health in question and let him off the hook. So much weight has gone that I have become anorexic and sleep is getting harder despite zopiclone and benzos Maybe I should take the antidepressants which I was prescribed but I'm afraid of them, some cause haemorrhages (I did take them on two occasions in June but had massive migraines lasting nearly 48 hours immediately afterwards) (and I was taking antidepressants before the stroke) My headaches are coming back now, not every day, but they are very strong, in the same place as the first thunderclap one and on a pain scale of ten I'd say 6 to 8 variable, and I'm scared. Feeling has not returned still on my left side from forehead to toes nor under my bottom lip since the botched salivary gland biopsy, I'm tired all the time, no strength, emotionally in pieces, suffocating stress. I don't know what to do. My little one is suffering, losing the last precious years of her childhood in anxiety that she should never have had to go through, god nows what this will do to her when she's a teen and an adult). If asked now, I would say to any French woman in a domestic violence situation, that she is better off staying at home, taking the risks, taking the battery, living with the violence (maybe dealing with it outside a legal framework!) than leaving home and fleeing because if she leaves the courts will award partial custody to the father and she will no longer be present under the same roof to protect her children. What do you think about the antidepressants, are they risky, am I getting these headaches because another NASAH is brewing? Is it the anxiety? It's not BP, my BP is 11 over 6 and I have a very slow pulse. Am I running a big risk here for another stroke? Any advice on any aspect of this would be very welcome, I'm surely not the only stroke victim to have had divorce and violence to deal with ? Thanks, all the best, Sammy Anne
  3. And a p.s. on recovery ... I still have (NASAH June 2015) exhaustion, hypoparesie on the left side, occasional head aches zero appetite, moments of deep depression, insomnia unless I take tranquillisers with sleeping pills which I still do.
  4. Hi all, Just wanted to add a word of precaution on the subject of MRIs and other scans. If you have the Injected Contrast Product with your scan/MRI make sure you discuss beforehand and check or allergies etc. Any weird or gritty or major burny painful or suffocating feelings following injections of contrast products, ring the emergency bell ! I had no problem with brain scans and MRIs during the 8 weeks I was in hosp but six months later during a routine heart MRI (my heart and lungs got a bashing during the NASAH), I almost pegged it, yes, really due to a grade 2 allergic reaction, and had to be reanimated. The MRI platform said said this was the first time they had seen such a violent reaction to a ICP. I'd signed the discharge form beforehand warning of instant death as one of the unfortunate side effects of such products and I'd dismissed it almost scornfully turning the page of my Paris Match ... thinking they almost got me six months ago it couldn't happen again ...!! Merry Christmas to all and courage to anyone currently in hospital or recovering from one of these ghastly experiences. Sammy Anne
  5. Thank you so much. We'd have been better and safer if we'd been able to return to the UK but my ex husband had our passports stolen. It is a nightmare trying to do anything here without ID. New ones can't be issued without paternal cooperation. I'm just trying to find and get furniture in here for my daughter's room and then put it together and thereafter, once we are settled, I will feel safer going back to the hospital for I feel the time has come for tests. It's risky as "he" could grab her back if I am unable to look after her and I am so afraid (and so is she) of this. This almost happened three weeks ago when I was hit by a lorry outside my daughter's school. I harassed the hospital to lettng me leave just in time to pick her up from school. My head is feeling better and a bit less achy perhaps because I have tripled my anxiolytics and that gets the anxiety down and frees me to concentrate and do things. Careful of my doses, tempted to quadruple and quintuple it all ... just to have some temporary ^peace of mind. There's nobody close to us, just destructive people trying to wrench my daughter away and demolish my reputation and totally ruin me financially so I am unable to look after my little one (husband is refusing to sell or flat and I have to still pay half despite being in a new rented flat for the two of us, this is a tactic) I have never felt so vulnerable except perhaps during the first three weeks post SAH. My parents stated saying recently that they didn't feel he was really devastatated during my seven weeks in hosp despite coming close to the worst thing imaginable and I felt that he put the pressure on me (through being abusive to both my daughter and me) as soon as I returned as if he was trying to push me into a second SAH. I'll go back to hosp next week, tackling the lack of sensation with massage and painkillers in the meantime. It'll be no surprise to you .... life is a struggle.
  6. THank you, I am very touched. I will go back to the hospital where I was treated and see if they can at least do a scan or prescribe some blood tests.
  7. You're so wonderfully empathetic and full of good advice, I knew this was the right address! Thank you so much. I've taken painkillers and anxiolytics and sleeping tabs and am feeling a bit better today, head aches much diminished,will go to the Internal Médicine guy when I can though to check out the leg symptoms (it's a step up from the loss offeeling on left side after the bleed). We are trying to get help on all fronts. I just need to protect my daughter and find a place, physical or otherwise, that we can both feel safe and rest in. Will keep you posted. Hugs, Sammy Anne
  8. Hi All, It's been a while since I visited your site. A lot has happened. I had to flee my home in July with my six year daughter due to DV problems and begin divorce proceedings. We spent two months in a Thelma and Louise type situation, driving around with our vital belongings in supermarket bags in the car, I can't say it better than that, homeless, relying on acquaintances for shelter not knowing from one day to the next if we would be safe. Cutting a long story short, I managed to rent a flat for the two of us (no small feat given that French landlords don't usually rent to people on disability), now we are settling in, trying to furnish and install the minimum to be comfortable. Luckily we are just two minutes from my daughter's school. I am writing because the pressure and stress and fear during that period has been mind-blowing, it defies description actually. I have lost 30 kilos. My head has been aching pretty constantly over the last few days in exactly the same place I had the thunderclap back in June 2015, I have a burning sensation and numbness at night in my left thigh and I don't feel very good overall. Could the pain and numb burning feeling be a sign of a rebleed? I live in terror of this. Any advice/ideas/opinions would be welcome. With the weekend arriving I am probably a bit more anxious than I should be. All the best, Sammy Anne
  9. Thanks Tina. I think I have to do an allergy test on MRI injected contrast products to avoid this happening again. If they do an LP tomorrow it will be number six or seven. Several previous have ended in the nightmare scenarios with needle in back vainly tugged in different directions to identify the CSF test area several missed attempts and me threatening to Xmas the teapot on their heads if they get it wrong even just once more!!! Daff, thanks too for understanding where I am coming from as far as my little chick is concerned. It is very expensive in France to consult a pedopsychiatre or psychologie hit covered by insurance. We did take her to four consultations where she emerged relieved having locked all her monsters in the cabinet of the osy but then I keeled over in extreme pain in front of her and she was unable to wake me. Then we spent sixteen days apart without even being able to phone or visit the intensive care forbids children under fifteen from entering and forbids mobile phones ... First separation since her birth. In the remaining month she was able to visit me in a hallway for a limited period once a week. We have a very close relationship. I can completely understand how your two want to jump into your bed at night. That comfort is a life saver. I bought my daughter a beautiful blue angel from someone in Texas. It is by her bed side. That is keeping her comforted for now. No doubt will consult again in February. By the way, for crying you're so right. Just did mine at the wrong time ... After reemerging downstairs I just wept and wept and wept... Felt silly... Then wept again. Look after you little selves. Hugs.
  10. Well done Frank you turned it around. You did the best for you. Remember two things actually three for your new job 1) don't take passengers unless you are very sure if them 2) make sure you carry lots of drinking water in the"cockpit" 3) do make sure you rest up and don't let yourself get bullied into doing hours that tire you out or too long distances. You can put your wife in the passenger seat for some of the time if you'd both like some company. I wish I had your courage to change jobs. It is difficult in France to be independent or to change professions after the age of around 30-35. So I set up a translation company in London to try to make a break for it professionally. Maybe you could try a setup too ? Less stress than constant driving. Look after yourself buddy
  11. Hi all. Am back in hospital in internal medicine this time to investigate the cause of my stroke and to see if there is an underlying autoimmune disease. This morning I had an MRI of the heart. Half way through they injected a contrast product. Twenty minutes later they sent in the crash reanimation team to bring me back. Anaphylactic shock and Quinck Oedema. Not feeling great still. Reeling from the shock of it and how incredibly unpleasant and unexpected it was. Last few days here I had been dreading the Lumbar puncture that I was supposed to undergo this morning after the MRI. Now I just feel like throwing the towel in and going home. It's bad enough that I had to tell my daughter that I was going to London for a few days for my company without snuffing it unexpectedly here in son MRI antiroom (I couldn't tell my little one I was coming back here simply because she has not got over the major medical shocks she has witnessed over the last three years with her Daddy and me .. Whiplash, multiple fractures and wheelchair, almost fatal pneumonia and pleurisy, stroke ... She hasn't been able to go to sleep since I returned from hospital in July unless I stayed propped up on her pillow while she falls asleep then she comes looking for me in the middle of the night for reassurance). Anyway that's off my chest now Hope you are all well and that Christmas was good. Happy and healthy New Year Signed in in my phone so things look different on the site. Best. Sammy Anne
  12. hey Debbie, Just to say you are in my thoughts. Your neurologist sounded very encouraging. They are such non-committal types normally, so it sounds good. Now you can switch off for another year, start getting out and about an breathing easy again. Big hugs, Sam
  13. Oh I know how you feel Debbie. It's very hard work. You never think you're up to it but .... .... believe me once you come out the other side so to speak, and all that is behind you, the sense of relief is just incredible. You'll be fine on Nov 5th, will be thinking of you. Plan yourselves a great dinner somewhere that evening always think beyond upcoming examinations (things were much more of an ordeal on Nov 5th for old Guy Fawkes ... as all the UK members and admins here will tell you!!). Look after yourself xxx
  14. Wow Frank you need as much time out from professional life as you think you can afford (an more, even if this means a life change I reckon)... I am thinking along these lines with my family at the moment. It is a hard decision to make. Since my NASAH on June 2, massive headache one afternoon, unconscious two minuteslater, helicoptered to the neurological emergency room in the city centre, then 6 weeks hospital. I've had exactly what you said in your message ""Your headaches will vary in Location, Duration and Intensity for anywhere from 6 to 18 months"" .... sometimes these are really invasive and scary but they have vastly diminished in the last two months (screens make them worse). Meanwhile, I will have to return to hospital in December for a few days tests including an LP which I'm toying with the idea of telling them to give to someone else !! Oh yes, and my memory has just evaporated, no longer just a question of lack of concentrtion but really whole conversations and events from yesterday fade away like ghosts like they never existed and I am quite shocked when someone insists enough on the fact that I have just forgotten and not that the event never existed. Concentration span of a house fly too. Hope this starts to improve, I'd hate to have to write reminders everywhere. Look after yourself, make sure the head pain at the back of the head isn't vasospasms, these should be seen to an sorted if it's the case. A friend sent me a short but spot on article on brain injuries on Facebook. How can I get this to you / to BTG? Sammy Anne xx
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