My Sister Lynn's SAH Story by sally

Hi everyone, my name is Sally and this is the story of my twin sister, Lynn who suffered a SAH on May 7th 2012.

We share a flat and Lynn had gone to bed as normal on the previous evening, but when she didn't get up the following day, I found her. She had been sick and was unconscious. She was taken to Glasgow's Southern General Hospital, which specialises in Neurosurgery and had the burst aneurysm coiled after a couple of days.

Lynn was in intensive care for 3 weeks and during this time had a tracheotomy as she developed a chest infection. initially, she couldn't move her right hand, but this sorted itself after a week.

After this Lynn had a couple of weeks in a surgical ward and had the tracheotomy removed. This was a strange time as she could now speak, but her language was a combination of Latin, Spanish and English! This gradually improved with the help of speech therapy and her brain repairing.

She was also very confused and firstly thought she was in London, then the Scottish borders, but this started to clear after a few weeks. there were other episodes of confusion too. She gradually became stronger and started sitting in a chair, then walking with a zimmer frame.

Around the end of June, she could walk by herself. The funny language was less now and she was moved to the Physically Disabled Rehabilitation Unit at the hospital. She now worked intensively with speech therapists and was in the gym twice a day.

Her main problem was now her lack of appetite and was living on nutritional drinks, bananas and some corn flakes. She also received weekend passes now and it was great to have her home.

On August 10th 2012, Lynn was released from hospital. There are now different things to deal with. Her appetite is still a problem. She says food tastes weird and it's mainly sweet things that appeal to her. Her Doctor is trying to help with this.

She has had a couple of bouts of sickness and feeling nauseous and had a few weeks of feeling really fatigued!

Lynn has been told not to consider returning to work until January at the earliest. The appetite thing is her main concern though. Her speech is a lot better and once she is stronger, she will go to the local brain injuries unit for more speech therapy. Any advice with the appetite issues if anyone has experienced this would be gratefully received!

Sally.