Sally's Story

I am British but live in Spain. I collapsed last New Years Eve at the foot of the apartment stairs. Some kind stranger called the ambulance and also alerted my husband who was still up in the apartment. Due to the date, people, including the paramedics, at first assumed I was drunk! I was in fact on my way to meet a friend for a drink but had not had one yet.

Next I remember I woke up in hospital and was told I had suffered a ruptured aneurysm, so clearly they were able to diagnose it right away. Then I passed out and was in a coma for 7 weeks. When I came round, blood had leaked into the backs of both eyes and I could not see.

The staff explained this to me and said it was a simple operation to clean out the blood. Well, it was fairly simple, the eyes were done under local anaesthetic several weeks apart and my vision is almost OK now. My only complaint here is that I had to wait months in blindness for the ops and I suspect they forgot to refer me, I only got a date when a Spanish speaking friend rang them and they seemed quite embarrassed!

Apart from that I have no complaints about my treatment. I had lots of physiotherapy and am now out of my wheelchair and walking OK, still trying to build up my strength. They could not entirely fix my hands which were all cramped up after the coma, my left hand (luckily I am left-handed) is nearly OK but the right hand is weak and I cannot straighten out the fingers properly.

In a couple of weeks I have another eye appointment and I am hoping they will say I am fit to fly back to UK and see my kids! Then I have another neurologist appt in January so perhaps I should not try flying back until after that. Hey ho, it is a long road and I am finding the anxiety and depression the biggest problem, so hooray for sites like this!