Dee Woods' SAH Story

My story starts on the morning of Sept 27th 2008 I had just started a cycle ride known as the tour of dartmoor 100 mls of real challenging cycling. I had not slept at all the night before, but this was not unusual, because I get excited about the challenge of staying on a bike for upto 8hrs.

After a couple of miles, we hit our first steep uphill climb, so steep some riders had to walk part of the way. I was feeling pretty good but it was very hot. After a while, as I was riding through a lovely village called Widdicombe- in the- moor as I reached the next steep climb I got up out of my seat to get more power and thought that I had just been hit on the back of my head with a big hammer.

I managed to scramble off of my bike and sat at the side of the road with my head in my hands trying to rub the headache away. I didn't think any thing was wrong other than a bad headache. After a while the headache didn't go away, but I heard a clip clop, clip, clop, noise and a voice saying "are you ok?" I managed to lift my head and saw a woman on a horse. I said "I am fine, other than a real bad headache" She then said "are you sure you have been drinking enough, I am not being nosey but I am a doctor?" .......

After reassuring her that I was ok she left . After sitting a while still with a pounding headache and not having a clue what was wrong, I managed to ride 46mls to the feed station, where I could not cycle any further.

By this time, I was feeling a little better and one of the motor cycle marshals gave me three codeine pain killers. I was given a lift back to my car and after a couple of hours when the ride was finished, I drove the 70mls home to Barnstaple in N Devon.

I decided not to say anything to my wife. That evening I was sat down and my neck got really stiff and was feeling light headed. I still didn't tell my wife. I went back to work on monday with a nagging little pain between my eyes.

By thurs I still had the pain and I told my wife Tina and I went to see my G.P. After telling him what had happened the weekend before, he made a appointment for me to have a C.T. scan, but it couldn't be done until the next day.

I had the C.T. the next day which showed nothing, so they did a lumber puncture which showed that I had a bleed, but I still didn't grasp the seriousness of what had happened.

I was admitted to A &E while arrangements were made to transfer me to the nearest neuro unit which was Derriford in Plymouth, 70mls away.

It was just like a roller coaster ride, on admission to the HDU at Derriford, my poor wife Tina had to get our son to take her to Plymouth because she can't drive. The next day after a further CT scan, it was decided that they could correct things by inserting coils, two I think.

After spending eleven days in hospital and my poor wife, two of those days having to sleep on hospital chairs I don't remember much. After reading some of the other peoples stories and their problems after coming home, I think it will be a long time to get back to some sort of normallity.

The thing I miss most, is not being able to drive altho I didn't drive much anyway, but I do for my job. I am finding it very hard to deal with what has happened, I find myself with a headache most of the time, dizziness and hard to focus my eyes on one thing for long, my short term memory is not good and I get confused easilly and what I really do find hard is controlling my emotions, I can find myself just starting to cry for no reason.

Thank you for listening..... this site has even been a big help just after one day.

And thank you to my wife Tina, for helping me through this....