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it all started on may 9th 2010. it was a sunday morning and i had come home after spending the night at my boyfriends house. my dad who was 56 years old was sat having his usual morning cup of tea and a smoke. i rushed around getting dressed as my sister was coming for me to go out for sundays dinner. me and my sister left at approximately 1.30 and when we got back at 3.30 we had the shock of dad being lay on the sitting room floor with agonising pains in his head, the pain was so bad he couldnt even speak to tell us what happened. we got straight on the phone to 999 and a few minutes later an ambulance arrived. all dad could say was "my head, my head" as soon as the paramedics moved him, he started vomiting and it looked like he was having some sort of fits as his head was shaking uncontrollably. the paramedics managed to get him into the ambulance to do tests to try and find out what was happening. after 10mins or so the paramedics come back to tell us they didnt know what was wrong and were taking him straight to hospital. me and my sister jumped straight into my car and followed the ambulance to the hospital. after my dad received a CT scan it was confirmed he had a small bleed on his brain. the hospital he went too didnt have the neurosurgeons to be able to operate so he was going to get transferred to james cook where an operation could be performed straightaway. in the meantime the hospital he was at gave him morphine which sent him to sleep for a couple of minutes but he woke up in even more pain. the nurses told me and my sister that the ambulance was ready to transfer him to james cook so we told dad he was going to ok and that we would see him soon. i wish i knew that was the last time i was going to see him conscious. anyway me and my sister left the hospital and drove to james cook so we'd be there waiting for him when he arrived. after an hour passed he still never arrived so we went to the nurses to find out what was going on. the nurses rang north tees and they told us that dad deterioated 2 minutes after we left him so he couldnt get transferred yet. we drove back to north tees and a nurse took me and my sister into a room to tell us they took dad for a second CT scan which showed his bleed was out of control and that they had to sedate him as he was losing consciousness and had to be put on a ventilator to control his breathing. we went in to see dad lying on a bed full of tubes and a machine breathing for him. at this point i dont think it sunk in what was happening, it felt like i was having a bad dream and couldnt wake up. we sat with dad for a while then the nurses recommended we went home to get some sleep as he wouldnt be getting transferred to james cook for a few hours yet. i kissed dad on the head and told him i loved him then left to go home. i just hope he could hear me! after getting home me and my sister sat up all night ringing the hospital every hour to see if he had been transferred yet. finally at 5am he had been so we sorted ourselves out and drove to james cook. as the day went by sitting by dads side, the whole family was called in and we were took into a side room for the neurosurgeons to tell us there was nothing they could do for dad. we were told that within 24 hours he would be braindead. at 6 pm we left the hospital to get some rest as the last 24hrs had been the longest day of our lives. just 2 hours later we got a call from the hospital telling us to go back as they done a test on dad which confirmed he was brain dead. we got back to the hospital and i just sat looking at him, holding his hand and not believing what was happening. after spending the last hour with him it was time to let him go. the nurses came in and switched off his ventilator and i had to sit there watching his heart beat getting slower and slower finally it stopped. i couldnt take my eyes off his chest and once his heart stopped i looked up at him and realised he was gone. ive never cried so much in my life. i couldnt and still cant believe this could happen. my dad was fit and healthy and within 24 hours he was gone. i havent just lost my dad, ive lost my best friend too. its been 4 month now and i miss he so much and always will. R.I.P dad, love you always xxxx

New Article OK so I'm not sure how to do this, but I know that I need to "talk" to people that will understand. So, my story...It was just an ordinary day work, then home. Went to bed feeling normal with the exception of a very stressful day and a very slight headache. About 3 hours later I woke up thinking the house was on fire due to the pain in the back of my head. I began vomiting horribly. I woke up my fiance, now my husband, and told him something was very wrong, and that the house was on fire. He tried to calm me but the pain in my head was so severe that nothing was helping so he called the ambulance. The next thing I remember is being in the er and a doctor asking me if I wanted to go to Indianapolis or Louisville. Why? She told me that I would die if I wasn't life-flighted to another hospital. 9 days in ICU that I don't remember much of at all. Now, working and trying to heal...still. Now I have some issues and a lot of questions. My life has been upside-down.

Hi everyone, My name is Christian and I am very glad to have found this site. Also, very much relieved to be able to join. I tried many time since I found this site in February and could not get in. Was very frustrated! But, seems it went through. I haven't been on here in a few months. My story us a little different as I never had all the scary and draining hospital stuff. But, here it goes. My SAH happened on August 21, 1989.....21 years ago exactly in a few days. I was 20 years old and in Universite at the time in California where I am from, but on summer break visiting family and friends in England and France. My father was American, and my mother is French from Paris and my french aunties best friend is from England, so, I have been going to both place my whole life. Anyways, it was nearing the end of my vacation and I was in the south of France on the Riviera with my aunt and grandmother for 2 weeks. I'd had the best time in England for a couple weeks, and then in Paris and the north of France before going to the Riviera. I'd been running everyday, going farther and farther and had reached the mark of 10 miles, right along the water on the board walk. I was thinking about things, my life, how I had to do well in school went I got home as I was finally transferring to a 4 yr Universite from a 2 year one. As I was nearing the end of my run, it happened. The left side of my head "popped" and felt like I had been hit with a hammer. The whole left side of my body collapsed and everything started spinning and I began to vomit and I think I even pooped and peed. I was down on the ground for what seemed an eternity, but was probably 5 or 10 minutes.....I was surrounded by dozens of people but could not speak, English or French, my language was garbled. They wanted to help, but I shooed them away. I don't remember too much. Eventually I did stand up and was able to say I was okay and wandered off towards mt aunts flat a few blocks up from the beach. My vision was still spinning though, and I was veering towards the left. I was leaning on the buildings between the blocks and when I got to a cross walk, I used all my strength to lean to the right side of my body and ran across the street until I could get to another wall and lean back on my left side against a wall and slid along. When I made it back to my aunties flat, I kept throwing up and ended up on the couch, staring at the ceiling and watch it spin and spin.....like a bad movie. Think I was like that for a day or two. Things seemed to pass and the vomiting subsided, and so did the Vertigo, but something else did not. Tinnitus, ringing in the ear. I have, since that day and moment, had the craziest noises in my ear.....tones, rings, crickets....whatever, every minute and second of the my life. My auntie took me to a French doctor who looked me over and said I'd probably gotten an inner ear infection from the sea as I was a big swimmer as well as a runner and had been swimming mornings in the Mediteranian. She gave me see sickness pills and sent me on that what. I think I was in shock really and I had to use my auntie as a translator as I was having a hard time speaking french and had never been that good anyways. I was back home in San Fransisco in a week. I felt fine, but different....and, the ringing in my ear started driving me crazy. I could get to sleep, kept wondering what had happened, couldn't concentrate, started sleeping much more that I usually did....This went on for some months and I decided to go and see a doctor. He gave me an MRI and said there was nothing and I was fine. Since I was in the states, and turning 21 in the states, my insurance through my mum expired. I was told by my doctor that the county did have a free clinic and he had a friend he did part time work their as a tax right off, (I found that out later). I went to see this other doctor at the clinic. He was well regarded and had a big practice of his own in another town in the county. I had hearing test done, but that was it. He told me I had ruptured an inner tube and the fluid had gone into my inner ear and caused the vertigo and ringing and vomiting. He told me I should have an operation for a skin graph from my ear lobe into my inner ear to plug the rupture. I hadn't had any vertigo sense, but I had not ran and swan or anything either. I was so excited I had the operation done without saying anthiny to my parents about my decision or see another doctor for one more opinion as my insurance was gone and I only had the clinic. I had the operation done, and when I awoke, the doctor was there and the first thing I noticed was that my ear was still ringing......my heart sank into blackness. I asked him about that and he said he had never told me the ringing would go away, and in fact, that it would always be with me. He also told me then that it probably cost me 30% of the hearing in that ear and that he hadn't really seen "anything", but he did the graph where he "thought" it may have happened. I was crushed. I'd had the operation for nothing, so change in anything and I now owed the county about 3,000 pds. which was a HUGE amount of money to me and I refused to pay, so my credit was ruined as well.... I was told not to drive for 6 weeks or two months, so I couldn't go to work or school. I remember becoming very depressed that I would be living with the ringing and began to think about it all over and over.....My life had change, and I knew it, but I couldn't figure it out. I'd missed some classes I needed to finish before I went to 4 yr. Universite so that was put on hold as I had to wait another year to take them...my grades were suffering as well. I finally went back to work and school and tried to go on with my life like a normal american college student. I also got my own insurance and went back to my original doctor to have more test and another MRI as I was insisting on it and he was the best in the county and told him what had happened. He said he was "surprised" that he friend at county had ran no test and gave me that operation. Everything came out fine and I was sent on my way. He told me if I was bothered by it, I should have an MRI every few years. I did transfer away to Universite, but a year and a half later than I should, and I struggled through my tough courses and was always worrying that I had a tumor or something. And, it hard to explain, but I felt odd in someway, like I was different from everyone else. I stayed up every night listening to my ear until 3 or 4 am......unless I was ****** which is something that I seemed to do more than I should have. It made me forget though and passing out in bed was much better than lying there listening to the bee's. I had another MRI when I was 25 and nothing still. Went on my way. Didn't seem like I could concentrate like I could before so I ended upjust doing restuarant work and bartending. I It was fun for a couple years, and I did it in San Francisco, then Paris, New York Ciry, Los Angeles. When I turned 30 I was in Los Angles and I began to think about another MRI.....the ringing and other numbness, headaches when I was tired or exhausted in the same spot twitching in my eye, arm and leg, had made me paranoid.... My father ended up passing suddenly and I went down, mentally. We'd never been that close and I was very angry. Put aside any thoughts of going to a doctor and began to drink more and stay to myself. After a year I moved back to San Francisco to be closer to my family and put myself through "the process" again. I was working at a high end restaurant in SAn Fransisco and was making more money than I ever had and kept putting the MRI aside. Unfortunately, my brother had a bi=polar experience which was very difficult for my family and me and I Kept putting the MRI off while we dealt and learned about that. It's about 6 years ago I finally went through it again. I was looked at by the doctor I saw like I was crazy, (of course), and given happy pills for depressed people, which I won't take. The only comfort I was given was a hug from the speech pathologist who did my hearing test. She was a cold as ice Chinese American and it was only after giving me my test she went "Wow.....how long has this been going on? You've got some heavy stuff going on in there". I told her and she got very sad and teared up and hugged me and said "Just hang in there young man". Fortunately, I have a friend who is a doctor. I knew him from before my SAH and I was sending him my test results and all that. I was very lucky to get his time. We started really going into and he solved the mystery as his memory is keen. "Didn't you have a bad motorcycle accident when you were 18 and you broke you arm?" I said "yes"....."Didn't you also hit your head pretty hard? And I said "I think so". I'd never put the two together, but he remembered the accident as he had known me then. I still had the helmet from the accident in the garage from my mums house, and sure enough, there was a huge divet in the exact spot where I have headaches when I am tired....the side the ringing is on. He then explained to me that I had had a SAH caused by that hit to my head, and when I was running a couple years after that, my blood pressure popped the anuerysm caused by that accident. He told me how lucky I was to be alive, that I should be dead......It had healed by the time I had an MRI months later and that I should have been given a Cat Scan which I have never had or been recommend. There's generally a 72 hour period to get a scan or MRI after the hemmorage. It was a bittersweet moment....to understand that I did have something wrong in my head, and it HAD been an aneurysm...But past tense.....it had happened and I had been misdiagnosed over and over. I was in the middle of so much personal stuff between my father death a few year before and my brother episode the year before.....lost a girl I loved as she didn't understand me.....although I had told her everything when we first fell in love. I was drinking too much anyways......severly depressed, not eating of sleeping. It all came to a head 5 years ago when I was in the middle of moving my brother and mum to Oregon and she went to France and I was left to stay with him for a few more weeks. I was to go to England and France after my mum came back, for a nice, well deserved vacation where I was going to go to the spot on the Riveira where I had my SAH for the first time since. My brother and I got into a heated arguement. ANd I left to go see friends. I drank too much and then drove and was pulled over and arrested and charged with drunk driving. I've been stuck here since, as I was not allowed to go to Europe or back to California.....The judge was harsh and took my license for 2 years and the money I had was spent on lawyers and court fees and a drug and alcohol course I was stuck in for a year. Oregon is a poor state and without a license to look and drive to work, I have struggled, especially as you all know the economy had been horrible and not really getting better. I'm extremely sorry for my long article, but, for me, I need to do it. Besides my friend who is a doctor, and a couple other close friends who know understand, there is nothing from anyone else. I've been looked at as odd, different, hypicondriac, over sensitive, "out there", a drunk, which I was. Even my own family does not get it. I ask my sister to look at this site....she has not, and only thinks I'm "messed up".

Hi...I am so happy to have found and joined this site. I was feeling very isolated...and there are no groups to join where I live. My story begins Aug 13th, 2010... I woke up at 4:30 a.m. with excruciating eye socket pain. My husband called a cab and we went to the nearest Emergency department. There they did a lumbar puncture and found blood and suspected an aneurysm rupture. So more tests followed and a CT scan angiogram confirmed my bleed. I was devasted having lost my very best friend 15 years ago to a ruptured aneurysm. I was then taken by ambulance to a hospital that dealt with neurological patients. There I met my neurosurgeon...who did my craniotomy and clipped my aneurysm. He is an amazing doctor. He saved my life. I was in Neuro Intensive Care for seven days and then discharged home. I have been very fortunate with my recovery and doing well. Extremely exhausted and have short term memory problems...hence extra milk in the fridge, wet laundry in the dryer and the list goes on. BUT and there always seems to be a "but" with me. It seems I have another aneurysm on the left side of my head. My neurosurgeon tells me it is small and we will watch it with CT scans every six months. I DO have confidence in his expertise but I have extreme anxiety which I am sure I would have had without knowing about yet another aneurysm. Anxiety..anxiety...my family doctor has prescribed anti anxiety medication (which is very addictive long term). It was suggested by a SAH survivor that perhaps I should try Energy Healing....and being somewhat sceptical, I did. I had 3 sessions and have to admit, it did help. I felt very relaxed after the sessions and the the lady who does the Energy Healing was great to talk to. Next I have enrolled in Meditation which is also helping. Restorative Yoga is next on my list (the instructor has been recommended to me)...So I am trying to cope. This site makes me feel not as isolated as I was feeling. We are survivors and are very "LUCKY"...if you do not count actually having had a SAH...lol. I try very hard to keep a positive attitude for myself and my family. Who have been very supportive. I feel so awful for having put them through this battle with me. Darn guilt even manages to creep in. Thanks for taking the time to read "my story"...and thanks for being here. Its a place I can go to and not feel so alone. You understand..

I manage a small cafe in a busy shopping centre which seats about 60 people I had just returned on Monday 3rd may 2010 after taking a week’s holiday. I went into work at 7am to start getting all the cupcakes ready, knowing that it was a bank holiday and we would be flat out all day... I was feeling grand and at 10.45am took my break. I had everything set up and ready to go - got hold of my cigs and a cup of tea and was chatting to the cook outside. When i came back in I was standing talking to the manager of our other restaurant in the centre, as they had a few problems. When I turned around, felt like I had been hit on the head. I started blacking out but didn’t pass out, so I sat on the ground - After a few minutes I got myself up and went to get some fresh air - the pain in my head was so sore and I was really dizzy, but I just kept pacing because i couldn’t stay still with the pain. I took 2 paracetamol and about 5 minutes after this, I started being sick. I started trying to get cover (the things that go through your head!) so I could go home at about 11.30 as nothing was getting any better. My dad came to pick me up about 11.45am (my husband was golfing and i couldn’t get through to him) and he asked me to ring the Doctor on call because I didn’t look well at all and my doctors was closed for the bank holiday. They couldn’t see me until 3.30 so I said that was grand and I went home to bed. Dad said he would pick me up at 3 again and to try and sleep it off ... not that I could anyway, because the pain was so sore and he kept ringing to see that i was ok lol. The doctor saw me at 3.30 and told me it was a tension headache, he gave me voltarol (injection) and anti sickness tablets. He said that if I wasn’t feeling any better, I should go to A&E in an hour and I was sent home. My husband came home about 5 and asked how I was feeling... told him I was still in pain, but I would wait it out a bit longer, as I didn’t want to look stupid going to the hospital with a sore head. 8.30pm decided I couldn’t cope with the pain any longer and needed to get some strong painkillers so off we headed to the hospital (I didn’t even pack a bag thinking they would give me some tablets and send me home) Arrived at the hospital at 9.15pm and after about 15 minutes they took me through and did bloods etc ... the doctor that saw me, wanted a second opinion so they sent for another doctor... he wasn’t sure and asked me would I stay overnight for observation, but he said I didn’t have too. I decided since I was still in so much pain, that I would stay (my choice) so my husband went and got me an overnight bag. A doctor came round to see me in the morning and when I said i was still in pain he ordered CT scans, one with the dye and one without, which showed nothing. At about 6pm Tuesday, they did a lumbar puncture and told me I could go home when the results came back clear. They came back with blood and within an hour, I was blue lighted to the Royal Victoria hospital about 45 miles away. Wednesday 5th, I was sent for an angiogram to see if they could see anything and they found 2 aneurysms (one ruptured )....they let me ring home about 12.30 to tell them they were taking me in straight away, they didn’t even close the hole in my leg they just wheeled me round. About 6.30pm i was wheeled back to the ward and that’s my story i will write about the follow up soon. Donna

‘It’s not life threatening!’ This starts on Tuesday 27th April & goes on for quite a while. I worked during the afternoon as usual but had a stand up row with someone which is quite unlike me at all, but I was just sooo angry! I came home, made tea & was sat on the sofa watching tv when my neck started to go stiff on the right side (I sit with my feet curled up next to me so I’m not postured very well). Then the left side of my neck started to crunch up & felt like it was turning into concrete. I was worried as my Dad had a stroke & I knew a stiff neck wasn’t a good sign. I took an Ibuprofen & it eased off, so I went to bed. Woke up the next morning & went to the loo for a wee twice with no problem. Went back to complete the process & suddenly got this huge pulsing pain behind my right eye, which felt like my eye as going to burst. Shakily made my way to the bed & phoned down to my husband to come up, by the time he came up I was rolling on the bed in agony. He asked if he should ring an ambulance, but I said to ring the emergency GP which he did. I couldn’t, as I was in so much pain but the GP insisted, so I spoke to him & asked if it could be sinusitis because I was congested & he said it was possible, so I queried the amount of pain & he said it was unlikely. We got in the car & went down to the GP & he examined me & asked about the pain, he shone lights in my eyes but apart from the pain I seemed fine but he was still concerned so rang ahead to the local hospital medical admissions unit. Back into the car & then to the hospital & down the long corridor to medical admissions with the letter from the GP. They put me on a bed & asked about the pain which had now dulled to a sore eye & headache, but it was still worse than anything I had had before. I waited a while & they put up a Paracetamol drip & took some bloods, then a junior Dr came & examined me & took my details. They did all the tests for strokes, lifting my hands above my head, baring my teeth, smiling etc & all was fine, even the shining of lights in my eyes. He asked about rashes & bruises of which I had none & he disappeared off. About an hour later I started to get a migraine aura & they gave me a cloth to put over my eyes to cut out the light. I stayed like that until the Consultant came (hubby was walking Nathan around the hospital during this time to keep him occupied) & asked how the migraine was. It was better although the head pain was still severe. She examined me too, her manner was very abrasive & abrupt & I didn’t like her at all. She told me she thought it was just a migraine although I knew it wasn’t & then she told me they didn’t want to do a CT scan on me because if it was clear, they would need to do a lumbar puncture which would give me a headache anyway & as I am overweight the risks were far higher ( I remember thinking surely with the pain I was in they should have investigated further just to be sure) She also blamed my weight for the migraine & said I should lose some (as far as I am aware the two aren’t linked). She also made me strip my clothes off to examine me with the implication that because my hubby was there that he was a wife beater & I was intimidated by him being there & wouldn’t tell the truth about my problem. I can appreciate that that can happen, but hubby was there because I couldn’t drive & there was no one to look after Nathan for us. Plus hubby was happy to go off & leave me to be seen in private. I think there are far better ways of approaching things & her manner was very rude, she told the junior Dr off for not physically examining me too, poor lad. I went home still in pain & positive it wasn’t a migraine. I knew for definite it wasn’t when I tried to sleep as the pain was far worse when I lay down. The next day I went to my GP & she prescribed Diclofenac & I went to work that day & for the next 10 days. I visited the GP again that week & was given sleeping tablets as I found the more tired I was the worse the headache was. By Friday I noticed my right eye felt dry & greasy but by Saturday it felt worse, so back to the emergency GP again. I’d been told I had muscle spasms by my own GP up to this stage & my neck was still sore, so I’d booked some physio with the lady who specialised in headaches. On the Sat the GP diagnosed cluster headaches & an eye infection & gave me antibiotics & Amytriptline which was the only way I got enough relief at night to sleep. I was told whatever I had, wasn’t life threatening & sent away (how wrong can you be). By Monday my eye was dilated & I had double vision, we were meant to be taking Nathan to Paultons Park for his birthday that day, but I ended up at the eye clinic. I was in agony with my eye & all the lights being shone in it made the pain much worse. They didn’t seem to have a clue what was wrong but sent me for an urgent CT scan & mentioned an MRI. The results of the CT came back clear but the Consultant was furious when I told him no lumbar puncture had been done last time I was in & he tried to get them to do one, but as I’d been discharged for 2 weeks I would have had to be readmitted to get that done. I was sent home with no idea of what was wrong to wait for a MRI scan. Still in pain, but sleeping better.We had a phone call to book a CT scan (which I’d already had) & then they rang back to book the MRI with a 17 day wait (this is urgent!) so I tried to ring our local BUPA to get the scan done privately. At a cost of £500 per scan we thought it would be worthwhile so went back to the GP to get referral done, the GP didn’t refer me straight away so there was another delay in being able to book the appointment & then some confusion about was needed. In the end it turned out that a brain & blood vessel scan counts as 2 scans so would have cost £1000. By this time I was sleeping better & in less pain (I hadn’t been working since my eye started to go). We decided to wait for the NHS scan – all the while assuming it wasn’t life threatening because no one was acting with any urgency. The scan day came & I went through it in a state of terror (I am claustrophobic) & pain, the pulsing on the right hand side made my head & eye ache even more. Glad it was over I went home again assuming that if they found anything they would contact me quickly. By this time my eye wouldn’t open at all & was virtually totally dilated so was painful to open in bright light anyway. Eight days went past with me still in pain & going back to the GP for more tablets & she tells me it looks like I have a bleed. Two GP friends also say the most likely thing is a bleed but no one contacts me from the hospital until 8 days after the MRI. The phone rings at 8pm & my hubby answers then passes the hone over saying it’s the eye Consultant. He tells me they have found something, but doesn’t go into detail other than to say it looks like I need surgery & that Wessex Neuro want me to go in on Sunday with a view to operating on Monday. He mentions coiling but nothing else & not having had a major operation before, I am terrified, but have no idea how serious my condition is. Saturday morning we get phone call about 11am from the sister at Wessex neuro telling me to come straight in there & then, as it’s safer for me to be there than at home if anything happens & that they want to operate on Sunday! I hardly have time to take it all in before we pack a bag & in we go. I arrive at Wessex & have to wait for a bed, they take bloods & I burst into tears over the nurses as I am now aware that I am in a serious condition & am worried about not coming out of the op the same person. They are very kind & reassuring. My bed becomes free & I get changed, they send me for an angio, it’s freezing down there & it takes about an hour to get the pictures they need, I don’t feel any pain but get weird feelings in my mouth & flashing lights behind my eyes as they move into the different blood vessels to the brain. When it’s over they have problems stopping the bleeding from the angio site & they draw a big circle on my thigh to show the extent of the bleeding just in case it gets bigger (about 6” across & it takes weeks to disappear) Late that evening the anaesthetist comes round, even thought the surgeon still hasn’t been to see me, he runs through the medical history & stuff & then later still, Mr Sparrow comes to see me & gives me the facts of my condition & that he wants to clip the aneurysm the following morning at 8.30am. I have another surgeon who come & mentions coiling & says that if I want coiling it can’t be done until Monday & they won’t be able to tell if I’m suitable for coiling until the surgeon comes in. I am torn but the thought of 6 monthly angios puts me off, so I opt for clipping. The next morning they take me down abut 8.45am & I remember going down but nothing else until waking in recovery to see the nurse who went down with me & saying ‘have I been done?’ & she replies’ yes you’ve been clipped’. I don’t remember going back to the normal ward but I felt like I’d been trampled on by a herd of wilde beast so I ask for pain relief & they give me Oramorph which tastes sweet & ukky. They offer me a cheese & tomato sandwich which I don’t want but I’m really hungry so I eat it. My hubby comes but I don’t remember much other than feeling sick & then throwing up. They tell me I was then taken to HDU with a vasospasm, but I don’t remember it at all. I remember being in HDU & hating it as no-one introduced themselves or talked to you or fed you at meal times. I only remember having 3 meals in there & finding it difficult because they wouldn’t sit me up, They spent 4 hours one night trying to get the long line in to monitor my BP as they were giving me Gelofusin to stop the vasospasms. I have about 30 needle marks on my wrists and arms from failed attempts & in the end they had to put it in my clavical artery in my shoulder. I was on lots of fluids & Gelofusin for days. I don’t remember much else apart form needing the loo & having suppositories & then not being able to stop going & the nurses sighing when they had to change me & the bed for the 5th time( no dignity at all). I think I was with it the whole time, knowing what day it as etc but hubby says I was slurring & dribbling & forgetful, I really don’t remember. But I was conscious unlike most of the patients in there so I was eventually moved back to the normal Neuro ward after a week. I was still on Gelofusin & fluids & still on complete bed rest. For the first time I saw my staples & scar which was scarey but the pain in my eye & head had gone so I didn’t care. I did have a period of numbness on my left hand side which lasted a few days until the Gelofusin took effect, felt like my skin was covered in clingfilm or I had surgical gloves on so my sense of touch was numbed. I was scared this was going to be a permanent thing but was reassured by the surgeons that the feeling would return & it did. I trusted them implicitly, after all they saved my life! This period of numbness lasted whilst I was on the normal ward too & my hubby was the most worried about me like this as I slurred a lot, dribbled from the left side & I forgot things I had done or was told minutes before. I could get out of bed & walk (which I needed to do a lot with drinking 3 litres of water a day) so the numbness wasn’t too bad but I was sooo tired all the time. When I went in for the op we were supposed to be going on holiday 3 weeks later & I was told there was no reason I couldn’t go so I go an unrealistic view of how long recovery would take. No way was I ready to to anywhere at the end of July & even now, 3 months on I struggle to cope with more than 4 hours of being out & the school run completely exhausts me. Listen to your body is the best bit of advice for anyone with a SAH or SAA. I think I have achieved a lot since my op (have been discharged from neuro clinic) but still feel like I still have a long way to go but it’s a step at a time for me now. I spent a further week in Neuro D & the care was great although not all the nurses were empathetic.I worried a great deal I wouldn’t get out of there, a shower tired me out completely so how would I manage with a lively 4 year old? I had my Trans Cranial dopplers done & was glad they were low, the next time they were considerably elevated & my going home was put back & I was distraught, I had missed my sons school visits & won’t ever forgive myself for that. On the Monday the Doppler man came round & I had tried really hard to do my 3 litres of water & sat with bated breath for his results, if they had come down I knew I would be going home or at least to the hospital nearer home. The results were good & I asked the Doppler man if any of his patients had ever kissed him & he looked embarrassed & said no! I didn’t kiss him but I was so happy I felt like kissing him. My surgeon read me the riot act about my weight (done in a much better way than the Medical Admissions Unit Consultant who was just rude) so I know I have to lose weight. Now almost 3 months on I realise how dangerous my situation was & it’s frightening that that first Consultant did nothing & it was misdiagnosed by several GP’s & I was even told it wasn’t life threatening when it clearly was. I also know how lucky I am to get a surgeon to come in at a weekend to operate on me as an emergency. I’ve been told by a GP friend that spent a year at Wessex that normally you get the registrar at a weekends. The skill of the surgeon means I am still the same person more or less, completely exhausted a lot of the time & my eye is still not 100% better but the alternative is unthinkable. Emotionally I think I am a wreck, I have a Neuro Psychologist appointment in October which I hope will help me deal with that side of things, but I m so grateful to be there & to see my sons first day at school. Thank you Wessex Neuro & Mr Sparrow! My aneurysm was 6mm on the posterior communicating artery & has been occluded with 2 clips, the aneurysm didn’t burst but I did suffer vasospasms during the operation.

It was an ordinary day in my busy life, I had just collected my 18 month old son from his grandparents after a long day at work. I took him upstairs and remember thinking how cute he looked in his little all in one pyjamas. I went to the kitchen to make his bottle up; it was a cold December night and I just wanted to warm him up and get him settled. I put the kettle on an then "wham", I actually turned around to see who it was that had hit me across the back of the head with a bat. My head hurt more than anything I had ever known and all I wanted to do was to go to sleep. Somehow, I dont really remember how I got back upstairs to my son. He was sat up in my bed waiting for me, he saw me and his face dropped - he just said "mammy?" I will always as long as I live remember that look on his little face (I have tears as I am writing this). I was fighting to keep my eyes open as there was only us in the house (I was just seperating from my husband at the time) I began to vomit and had a severe pain in my neck. My middle daughter came in and called an ambulane straight away and called my ex husband. I dont remember much untill the paramedics came in and I was crouched over the toilet being sick. They checked me over and asked me if I had been drinking which I hadn't. They told me I had a bad migraine and to lay in a dark room until it passed. The pain got worse and worse until my mum came and rang the emergency doctor. Two hours later, he came and took one look in my eyes and said he thought I had a bleed in my brain and called an ambulance. Another two hours passed and my mum rang to say she would take me herself; we got to the hospital where they did scans etc. I was told that I had experienced an SCH and that they needed to operate but I would need to be moved to another hospital as they didn't do Neuro there. The next day I had my coiling done, I was quite ill afterwards and dont remember much apart from waking up now and again to my family members in tears (they were told to brace themselves for the worst). The staff I must admit were amazing, as were the nurses at James Cook hospital. I went home to recover after two weeks. It was a difficult time - I couldn't sleep as I was afraid I wouldn't wake up, I was void of any emotion apart from anger and I took that out on everyone. Time is a healer and after 3 months I was back at work and I started to feel love for my family again although it was hard work. My little boy means the world to me and I feel so guilty it took me so long but I am more than making it up to him now. Three years went by without much of a hiccup apart from being emotional from time to time. I met a wonderful new partner who is a great support even though I test his patience every now and then. In January I found I had a second anerysm that was growing quite quickly and I would need it coiling within six weeks. Seven months on I am still waiting after a few postponed appointments and I am finding it difficult to get on with the day to day things. I worry that it will burst again and I feel scared to be alone with my son just in case. It's causing friction in my relationship but I hope he understands the stress it causes. Well lets hope it happens soon; I turn 40 this year and I want to say LIFE BEGINS AT 40! Good luck to everyone; you are all an inspiration. Jo x

Well here goes "My Story" ... I’m normally very active and can/would attempt to do anything! Even though I was of a small build and only being 7st5 !! The week before the SAH I was feeling really tired as soon as I got back from school from collecting my bigger two girls Shannon who's 8, Harriet (5) to the point that I would leave Pete (hubby) downstairs with all the girls (and Jasmine 2) I slept for an our or so !! Which was VERY strange for me as I don’t EVER sleep in the day, didn’t even sleep in pregnancy! I also kept getting pins and needles in my hands, and couldn’t clench my hand to make a fist !! I booked an appointment with my Doctor but they couldn’t fit me in for another week !! As I was not one to make a fuss I booked it for a weeks time, On the Sunday 7th March while Pete was out the front of our house watching the bigger girls on the bikes he “pushed” Jasmine on hers, So I could plant 10 Leylandi trees !! Which may I add that I did quite well, That evening once the all our girls were asleep I decided I wanted to move the living room around as I was bored with it (like you do) So after Pete and I struggled with it we couldn’t agree that either of us liked it so put it all back !! Monday 8th March- I walked Shannon and Harriet to school as I always did, I got back just after 9 as I wanted to sort Jasmines room out as we had ordered her big girl bed rather than her toddler bed, after I took out the toddler bed then moved her chest of drawers’ around in there and it was ready for her new bed. Jasmine tried to come up and “help“! Pete got “asked“ to come upstairs and get her as I'm trying to now tidy Harriet’s bomb site of a room! He suggested taking Jasmine to the bakery shop up and supermarket up town to buy something for lunch so I'd get half hour or so peace to get on with things. When they left I “hit” Harriet’s room she had a cabin bed so I sat under it and started to sort things out, all of a sudden I started to get a headache, I thought to myself that it was irritating and wished it would go away as I had so much to do! Then it got more intense I thought it’s not good it hurts that much I'm going to have to go downstairs and get some pain killers (which I never do)!! With that I got up from under Harriet’s bed and walked towards the top of the landing near the stairs and BANG! I was down on the floor with Pete touching my face telling me not to move as help was on the way! I couldn’t feel my legs or anything. The next thing I remember was a rapid response paramedic talking to me asking what had happened and how long had I been there!! I remember the light from the window form out bedroom beaming in and I started screaming that the light was hurting my eyes!! The paramedic asked Pete to closes the curtains…The next thing I remember was in A&E with a nurse telling me she had to take my earrings off as I was going for a scan! (My earrings which I may add I never got back)!! I think the next thing I remember was my Mum in the room with me (Pete had rang her to say I collapsed and was on the way to hospital) My Mum lives in Devon (as do the rest of my family) My Mum and Mark (her husband) were with me be the early evening. I recall asking my Mum to lie in bed with me and cuddle me. Arghhhhhhh The next thing I remember was that I was on a normal ward and was being showered by a bloke, at that point I guess I didn’t care who it was but I knew that I felt “dirty” and wanted one, I was also bed bathed by a girl much younger than me ! Very strange. Then I remember being moved from a normal ward to a side room then to a room on my own then the next thing was I was having” something done to me near my groin) Which I later learnt was more iv drips etc ! The next thing was I “woke” up to read at the foot of my bed property of HDU. My three big brothers and my Dad came up to visit me from Devon whilst in HDU too, just a shame that my eldest brother and my Dad come the first time of me living up in Oxford for 13 years !! Still I guess as I never got ill it was a shock to hear I was so poorly. Visting times were pants and when ever Pete came to vist I promptly told him to “go” Even when he bought the girls in I asked him to take them home as it wasn’t right for them, I spent Mothers day in there and I was gutted!! I don’t even remember reading the cards from them. I thought every night there were parties in the ward once all the visitors left and that local kids used to walk through and smash bottles and threaten staff! I remember a dietician coming to see me on one occasion asking me why I wasn’t eating?! Ummm because your food here is rank!! I was only eating the little tub ice-cream that I chose for pudding. One particular day I had many visitors, some of which was there first time of visiting me in Hospital, I didn’t think anything of it at the time……….One morning a member of the kitchen staff came to my bed and gave me a cooked breakfast! Bizarre! They just wanted to get me eating! I tried one mouthful…. It was not good! Everything tasted the same! I ate the toast but left everything else, I was yet again visited by the dietician and I was told unless I ate then they would start feeding me through a nasal tube! Told them were they could stick that and I would eat there food if it was worth eating ( I have spent my whole life being told I should eat more and I guess I had enough of being “bullied“ about it) On Wednesday the 25th March (now I had worked out what day I was on and that I been in there for ages) they told me I was getting transferred to a “normal” ward. It was only then that I realised that as they were wheeling me down through the HDU that there was no way at all that there were parties in here at night! My bed and another lady were kind of sectioned off from everyone else’s, we had one on one nurses apparently! Anyhow I got taken to normal ward (my own room again) and had asked to use the toilet ( I had my catheter removed in HDU), a nurse asked if it was ok to stay whilst I went for a wee (thankfully I had my own toilet in my room) Bearing in mind it was the FIRST time I had walked since the fatefull day of the 8th March and you could put your hand around the top of my leg as the muscle had “wasted” away, needless to say I came around to a oxygen mask , 2 porters and the nurse !! The first question she asked was … did you just normally pass out or…… As far as I was concerned I had just passed out as I felt as if I was going to as she said I was very “graceful” as I went down to ground !! The next couple of days I was yet again bought down cooked breakfast’s I didn’t even bother lifting the lid I just ate the toast, Being woken every two hours was taking its toll on me now, as im sure I told the nurses too !! I remember on a 4am check of “what day is it’s, who is the prime minister, where I was….The nurse had “spiked my drink” With laxative stuff which I had refused every time! When I told her I was not drinking it she just laughed and said, oh well worth a try! I swear if I was in a posiition I would of swung for her, I know that she should never of done that with out my consent as I was able to give it and had refused it prior to that,. I then kept thinking about the other patients that may be tricked and are less forward then me in saying NO! On Saturday I was told that I may be fit for discharge for home on Sunday but more likely Monday, grateful as I so wanted to go home, but a little concerned that I hadn’t walked more than a couple of metres to the toilet and back unaided , still I was not about to question my weakness…our as id prefer to call it my muscle weakness, it dawned on me that I hadn’t had a cigarette and therefore thought well as I have been nearly 3 weeks without one there was no point starting when I got out and to be honest I was worried that I would have another SAH or that it would cause one. Yay Monday was here at last, Pete and his Dad came into see me and I told Pete I was due to be discharged so we decided to go for a cuppa at the league of friends café bit, So Pete got me a wheelchair and off we went to the café, when I returned to the ward there was a nurse there waiting for so stay I was “free” to go!! Thankfully Pete hadn’t left so he helped to get my things together and off we went Jasmine been with Pete and wouldn’t leave my side, bless her… I got to our car and decided that I would sit in the back with Jasmine and his Dad could sit in the front.. Jasmine held my hand all the way home, I felt so dizzy on the drive home it was awful, so much fresh air too! When we arrived home Pete helped me the front door and went back to take his Dad home as Pete had picked him up from there, Jasmine went with them. It felt awful I wanted to clean everywhere to me it was dirty and don’t get me started on my first ever new kitchen we had fitted the end of last year (im sure I had an ocd as I was always drying the sink and didn’t like water marks on it) So I cleaned the downstairs cloakroom toilet and the sides in the kitchen when Pete come home and “caught” me! He got really moody and stormed back out leaving Jasmine with me He went and bought more cigarettes which really annoyed me as he had told me in hospital that he would give up when I got home, I then received lots of texts from my friends saying that I shouldn’t be doing housework and that Pete was really upset at school waiting to pick up Shannon and Harriet !! I just wanted some control in my life as I have always been in control of it before. My bigger girls were so pleased to see me as they didn’t know I was due to come home that day as I didn’t want to give them false hopes, I had cuddles from them both this time but in Hospital Shannon didn’t want to cuddle me ! I asked her why and she said there were too many germs in there? I think she was more scared than anything. Harriet on the other hand wouldn’t leave my side. When I drank she did, when I moved she did etc. As I didn’t want to wait around for my prescription at the hospital the doctor came for a home visit the next day to write a prescription for codeine and paracetamol. He just stared at me before saying, your so very lucky Karen!! I just smiled and said thanks!! Little did I know what had gone on- -Monday 8th March SAH (on route to the hospital I'm told I had a seizure in the ambulance) Wednesday 10th March coiling (however I was having severe vasospasm’s ) Pete was told to expect the worst, he left me in ITU (Where I was at that time) and came home and the girls asked Daddy why he was crying and told them that Mummy was really poorly and may die !! (Hence I now know why I had so many visitors) all I thought was my poor babies being told that they may lose there Mummy! No wonder Shannon had been distant with me and Harriet and Jasmine so Clingy, there were so scared. Pete was too but has never discussed it with me and I haven’t asked and I still can’t get my “head” around it all! Pete has told me that the part of my brain that suffered the vasospasm was my temper, my appetite (which explained why I can only drink one coffee a day now and I went off chocolate for ages but I stupidly weighed myself when I got home as was just under 6 and half stone ! So although I didn’t fancy any chocolate I wanted to eat to “fatten myself” up! Here I am today I feel as EVERYONE has “forgotten” that I nearly died and how serious it was. I’m back to “normal” doing housework, cutting the grass front and back, I pick the girls up from school every day (Pete takes them as after knowing he took them while I was in hospital he is more than capable to help, also I couldn’t cope with the morning rush of hoards of parents wanting to talk to me at once! As for side effects. Pete said my temper is really short fused and I seem to swear a lot, tourettes. Also I don’t hold back on speaking my mind either anymore I’m happy to tell people the truth if they ask for it! I have learnt life is too short, although I really don’t understand what happened to me and because I'm so “normal” it feels as if I was a fake? I almost want to scream to people and say “don’t you know I had a brain haemorrhage you and your moaning about a headache that you got through drinking too much “!!)Not a lover of alcohol by the way) lol!! I have headaches quite regularly and fight the tiredness everyday, I know after reading lots on here I know I shouldn’t but I’m stubborn what can I say? I Also get really frustrated when I can say the right words that I’m thinking and Pete more often or not finishes’ my sentence ! Argghhh It annoys me. I also find I stutter sometimes to finish what I’m saying!! I have taken over 4 hours to write this but thank goodness that I wrote it all on word so I could save it unlike my first attempt to write it one here and the page refreshed and I lost it all !! I’m sure there is so much more to write but I appear to have a mind block on now and don’t want to bore you all too much, its been great to finally write some of it down at last, P.S. I have put all my weight back on and MORE !! And have been walking the dog and took girls on a bike ride too!! Take care everyone and thanks for the support and knowing that I’m not alone xx Karen xx

I had just turned 40. One month later whilst off work, I was spending the week in Perth at my wee sister's with my two kids and my nephew. On 14 October, they went for pizza and I went shopping because I don't like pizza. Shopping done and in the car I went to the toilet and felt a sharp pain from my left ear to my head. I left the toilet and walked to my car, sweating and panicking that I wouldn't make it. I got inside the car and sat panicking then had to jump out to throw up. People just watched me (obviously thought I had a hangover). I then managed to phone my sister and she sent her partner to pick me up. He took me to her flat and I lay on the toilet floor dying. Because of the pains in the back of my neck I asked her to take me to hospital. NHS24 thought it was possibly a migraine so they treated that and the sickness feeling and I went home to my sister's (no recollection). My partner travelled from Kirkintilloch to Perth by train and took me to my own house on the Thursday evening (15th) and i spent the night with my 2 wee girls with a sore head and feeling sick. Friday morning (16th) I phoned the doctor and got an emergency appointment, then my 7 year old phoned my sister in law and asked her to take me (I had my last ciggy at that point but didnt realise it would be my last). The doctor did a thorough examination then gave me some medication but asked me to phone back if i wasn't any better in the afternoon. I slept whilst my 10 yr old tried to get me to eat, but I thought it's the weekend and I cant feel like this all weekend so I phoned the doctor she suggested that I go to hospital because she thought I might have a bleed. I when to hospital and spent the night scared. * The next day I had a CT scan which showed nothing, so later I had a Lumbar Puncture. Another night scared not understanding the seriousness of this. Next day results - blood was found so I was moved straight away to Southern General Hospital. The next day I had another CT scan with dye but again, nothing was found so I was told that they might not find where bleed came from and that it might have sorted itself. During the night with the headache in full flow I asked a nurse if the headache would disappear soon and if I could get back to work. She explained that it was more serious than that. One last test (20th) - angiogram. I had the fright of my life that they where going to put something in my groin. That test was long and warm and I was glad when it was finished. They then approached me to say they had found 2 aneurysms and that they would sort it straight away. I listened in a panic, thinking that I need to get it sorted but I didnt get to speak to my family who it turns out where sitting waiting outside the ward waiting for me to return from my angiogram. The surgeon wasn't able to contact anyone on number that I gave them so no one was aware what was happening to me. I woke up in HDU with family around me who were delighted that I was talking. Back in ward, I had to deal with facing my children because I had promised that they could visit. That was hard because they just wanted their mummy home and because there were no visible scars the wee one thought "Oh! you're better." I did the usual: gave blood, took medication - as much as I could get, got scans and ate very little. About 4 days later I broke down panicking about my kids and not seeing them, and them having to deal with the big change and live with their Dad. I got my final MRI scan and was told one aneurysm was coiled and the other was too small and too near the big one to touch at this time. I was told that there was a 1 in 5000 chance that it would cause any problems. I got home (29th) and to date have only had my kids staying with me twice. The shock of the seriousness of it all was my first problem. Dealing with that and the taking of medication daily to deal with the headaches. I have a twitchy left eye and gets worse when im tired, shaky hands sometimes and now the concentration level is at zero. But I'm told it should all get better, so I'm hoping to get my kids back full time very early in the new year then get back to work after that - I can live in hope. Because I am on my own at home I find the days long sometimes and that I get emotional: some words in songs, thinking of the future if anything else will happen, and sometimes thinking what could have happened and my poor kids, but also I think sometimes that I'm so lucky to still be here to get another chance.

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....

Wow! so glad to have happened by this brilliant website, can't wait to share it with my family! Well here goes ... I had a SAH on 26/5/10, totally out of the blue, had never heard of them before, except to think they happened to "other people" and that you died!!!!.well what a learning experience the last month has been and until I found this website was starting to think the hard part was being home this past 11 days. What I've been through since then, the SAH seems a bit like "wee buns". A lot of it is hazy ...all I remember is as a very active fit 40yr old I was planning on walking to my local post office on a lovely sunny morning, before coming home having a coffee and then going for a treck across fields with the dog. What actually happened was I saw my daughter off to school (don't remember) picked up the letters to post and collapsed in the front hall with the most awful pain in my head and neck I've ever had. As soon as I "hit the deck" I started vommiting and tried to get up, but my legs just would not work!!! I remember putting them into the position to crawl and trying, but only the top half of my body moved. I lay there unconscious for 8 hours until my daughter came home from school. She said I told her it was a bad headache, so she helped me into bed and from 5 o,clock Monday evening until 8pm Tuesday night she never left me, she said I just "slept" and vommited and made no sense. She stayed off school and all this time I told her it was just a headache. That changed when I woke up screaming with the pain and she rang her Grandfather, who upon arriving phoned an ambulance. Initially I was taken to local hospital upon results of cat scan was transferred to Royal Victoria Belfast in emergency ambulance, very ill. My family was told the next 12 hours were critical as medical attention wasnt sought for nearly 2 days. My daughter feels so bad, but I've told her she's only 14 and I kept telling her it was a headache!!! My other daughter at University was rushing home totally distraught and arrived at my bedside just before surgery. I cannot remember anything at all of these 3 days until I woke on the Thursday after the coiling operation. To cut long story short, I'm now home and totally frustrated ...can't do things I've done before, such lovely weather outside but want to hide away, overwhelmed by most things. Tired, very sore muscles, no memory, finding it difficult to get to the end of a conversation. Cry at the drop of a hat and still in shock that this happened to me. All my plans for summer activities with family including my 41st birthday, have been scrapped. Know this might sound trivial in light of what happened but have put on a stone in weight in hospital, through comfort eating and the great hospital food and friends and family bringing me treats and cannot even muster up the energy to go for a walk. My life as I knew it, seems to have been taken away from me and I feel so low. My moods swings from being reasonably ok when its just me and my daughter to irritable, scared and cross. I also have an aneurysm that needs an operation in late august, so my recovery is delayed until I go through this. Any help or support from people who have "come out the other side" or are going through similar at minute would really really be appreciated. Many thanks Angela

As I sit here, about 8 weeks after my stroke, I feel quite tearful. Not because I have a physical disability. Not because I am unable to cope. I am glad to be alive. I live life to the full. But because I am different. I am no longer the person I was and it is taking more time than I expected to get used to it. I have thought long and hard about what happened in the weeks leading up to my stroke. There was a redundancy process at work. (I am a teacher at a secondary school. Teach Textiles, Food Technology and Art) There were the normal stresses of working with teenagers. There was a relationship with highs and lows. There were my two children (10 and 12). There was the normal balancing of work and leisure and family time. A week before my stroke I was at my GP's for something unrelated. My blood pressure was something like 130 over 85. No worries there.. On Saturday the 1st of May I went for a bike ride with a friend. Beautiful bluebell woods. A slightly spaced out feeling.. Tired and a weird, slightly odd feeling by my left ear. I said: 'I think I may have an ear infection coming on' On Monday I spent the day with my boyfriend and we had a few glasses of wine when I felt like I could hear a wooshing sound inside my head. Which pulsated to the beat of my heart. What was this?? At work later that week, someone offered me a chocolate digestive.. (I LOVE CHOCOLATE!!) and I heard myself say: 'No thanks, they just don't taste the same, they seem to have a bitter aftertaste.' Thursday evening we had an arts open evening at work. I felt spaced out. Found it hard to concentrate and hear what people were saying. Hard to respond. Later that evening I was watching tv with my partner and my neck hurts and my head hurts. He gave me some paracetamol and we went to bed. Friday arrives, it is the 6th of May. Paul is going off to Scotland and needs to get ready to catch a plane later that day. I wake up and walk to the shower. When I stand in the water I suddenly realise that I can't really move my left arm properly. It waves about, without any control. I can't feel it. I burst out laughing, as it looks funny and go back into the bedroom, saying that I think I have slept on my arm and that it has pins and needles. Shaking it about, trying to stimulate the bloodflow have no effect. About half and hour later I feel quite panicky as I am unable to tie my hair up, do my shoes up and put on my bra. But with help from Paul and a friend who has turned up to walk the dog, I get ready to leave the house. Paul drives me to work, as I can't drive. Why oh why I think I can work, when I can't use my left arm seems a weird thing now. I walk through the door of the classroom, where I am supposed to do a demonstration on how to make a bakewell tart. My colleagues are there. I burst into tears and blurt out: 'I don't think I can do this, something is wrong. I feel something is wrong.' My colleagues want to help: 'don't worry, Annemarie, we will help you.' Jill offers to do my demo and I babysit her group.l I walk around the classroom feeling odd, pain in my head, unable to say what I want to say. Confused. I ring my GP and get an appointment. Manage to drive the car, with great effort. Luckily it is not far. The GP looks at me. Does some tests where I have to look at him moving his finger in front of my eyes, holding out my arms with my eyes closed. He concludes: 'I am not sure, but it could possibly be a migraine. Go home and if it doesn't get better come back.' The weekend I spend under the duvet. No energy. Terrible headache. Feeling rotten. Still not eating properly as everything tastes odd. I have my children and they fend for themselves like troupers.. I make it through til Monday, after texting my line manager to say: 'I am feeling much better and should be in tomorrow.' Her reply is: 'We shall wait and see about that!' I go to work. My left side still feels funny. I find it hard to speak and my head is all over the place. I go into the classroom where my group of year 10 pupils are waiting.. It is a small group of motivated and lovely girls. But I can't actually remember the lesson now. It is a blur. I ring the GP and go home again. The GP does all the tests again. Shines a light into my eye and says, you need to get an eye test to make sure it is not ME.. But it probably is a migraine. He prescribes some tablets. I go back home and to bed. About 6 pm I find myself unable to speak clearly.. I am slurring the words and sound and feel drunk. It is so odd. I am scared, something just feels terribly wrong. Paul and Ali take me to A & E. After a long wait, (And my speech gets better again, by really concentrating and not saying too much) I am seen by the triage nurse who records my blood pressure as 210 over 110. The consultant says: 'I think you are having a hemiplegic migraine, and you will probably feel a lot better in a few days.' He gives me some co codamol and sends me home. I sleep and sleep and sleep. Feel terrible. On Tuesday I start vomiting. Wednesday I start to feel worse and worse, vomiting feeling totally spaced out, unable to use my left arm properly, headache, confused, unable to concentrate and focus. Paul rings the doctor's surgery and makes an appointment. The GP is a different one. I say: ' Whatever you do, I won't let you send me home. Something is wrong and I want you to refer me to have it investigated properly.' Her response is that she thinks that is a reasonable request. She asks me to wait outside her room. I loll about on her chair. Drifting in and out of sleep. The hospital is not far, and Paul comes to take me. He can't stay, so I sit in a waiting room for what feels like hours, holding a cardboard sick tray in front of me, and feeling sick as a dog. Feeling like I am going to be sick all the time. Finally I am called into a room, where I can lie on a bed. I feel so much better lying down. More fingers to follow with my eyes, squeezing the lady's fingers, pushing and pulling her hands, touching (Actually, unable to do this) my nose with my left hand whilst keeping my eyes closed. She says: 'we are going to send you for a scan, and MRI scan to see what is going on' Unfortunately, there is no appointment avaialable as it is past 5 pm now.. I am taken to a ward where I am in a bed. I feel miserable and scared. And queasy. An unexpected surprise is when three of my best friends suddenly turn up about 9 pm on their way home from yoga. They have popped in to see me, I told them I was in the hospital. In the morning I am wheeled down to the MRI machine. I feel like I am in a scene from Avatar. My disabled body is strapped onto a trolley and I am slid into a machine, which hopefully takes me into another world.. I feel queasy but manage to stay still. An hour or so later, back in my bed, I wake up to the consultant pulling the curtains around my bed. 'You have had a stroke .' he says, you will need to stay in the hospital for us to monitor you and for some further tests. You will not be allowed to drive for a month and you need to be off work for at least a month. Do you need any help with your children, we can get in touch with social services.' I am relieved and shocked at the same time. Want to cry. But am glad to know that my instinct was right, that something was wrong, I was not a drama queen. They send me for an ultrasound of my carotid arteries and it turns out that one of them is blocked completely. A clot from this artery has caused a bit of havoc in my right parietal lobe.. (All these new words!! I had never heard of any of these things before) I get visitors. All the people I know, and I did not realise how many there were! come to see me.. A continues stream of people, which makes me feel great and worn out at the same time.. I snatch as much sleep as possible. Sometimes it feels impossible. But the care, warmth and love I feel sustains me. Although I am now keen to go home because the hospital is a depressing place, with smells and sounds that make me feel like an alien, I have to stay in. I am so upset. Wish for life to go back to normal. I am allowed to go home for a few hours on Saturday and Sunday and that really helps. Makes me feel good to be home. Disappointed on Saturday when I try playing the piano and am unable to do it. Also find that food seems to drip down my face and I am not aware of it, can't taste and chew on the left.. They want to do an ultrasound on my heart. The computer technology in all this amazes me! How impressive the amount of data is that they can get from all this! On the way to the doctor who is going to do the ultrasound, I manage to read my notes. I am trying to take it all in. The ultrasound shows no abnormalities in my heart. That is reassuring. I think I can go home.. But again, the hospital wants me to stay for one more test, an MRA.. which is an MRI with contrast liquid put into your veins. To get a better picture of my carotid artery, to determine if there needs to be something done about it. There are no appointments available so luckily I am allowed to go home on the Tuesday evening and have the MRA on Friday. I have improved dramatically since arriving in the hospital. I can speak clearly again. I can move my arm and leg better. I have no sensation in my fingertips and feel funny tingles in my body. I don't have the headache and the queasiness. Food is starting to taste good again.. And I am glad to be alive. Glad to know that I have so many people who care for me, glad to know that the boyfriend who had not been reliable in the past 5 months, was now here for me! And did care!! It has now been 8 weeks since the stroke. I am off work still. Physically I am nearly back to normal.. (Other than a strange feeling down the left hand side of my body. Reduced sensation in the left side, which is worse towards the extremities. Tingles, and weird itches at times. ) But all that is not the worse. I suddenly feel like the bottom has fallen out of my world. Vulnerable, emotional, tearful and unable to cope with stress. Panicking when unexpected things happen. I need a bit more time before I go back to work. Feel guilty too, as I have had fun in these 8 weeks too. Have had the chance to get a lovely sun tan as the weather has been fantastic. Hope to make some changes! Going to give it my all to make sure I make a full recovery psychologially before I go back to work! That is my story so far.

DAY 1 - I never thought that we would fall out of love and I still don’t think we will. Back in May when you first got ill I held your hand not knowing whether or not you were going to make it. I thought ahead to a future without you and I saw an emptiness that still haunts me. Nobody told me how hard the days following this one would be.May 21stWe arranged in the morning to meet Chris and Tracey in the evening. It was a hot day and I had arranged for Chris (Tall) to score some weed for you. Wee Chris was at the house as we had just finished training and Mike was away to his work. Plan was that I was going to go meet an old friend in town for a coffee. when Mike finished work he was going to join me and Chris at The Art Cafe, I would meet Bob and they would go off together and rejoin me later. So Chris and myself ate jerk chicken in the garden, Louis had gone off to Beckys for the night and you were in the garden gardening. It was sunny and we were looking forward to weed cakes and going out! All was well as I kissed you, told you I love you and set off to town. Just the same as I always did. I ‘knew’ that when I got back our life would be just as normal as it was when I left. After all bad thigs dont happen to us. Not us the happiest little family around. Two upwardly mobile young people, good careers, a beautiful son and a lovely house. Nothing could happen to us and no-one could touch us. Unstoppable. We arrived at the cafe at about 1230/ 1300, met Mike on the way. Bob was inside when we arrived and we all had coffee together. Mike and Chris left to go look at records and DJ stuff, I stayed to catch up with Bob. He told me how he stood in the local elections at Ponte as a candidate for the Socialist Alliance. He didnt win, even the BNP beat him!!!! I got my phone out and noticed I had a missed call and a voicemail. I asked Bob to excuse me as I listened to the call… It was you.BOOM, My heart started to race, I couldn’t hear what you were saying it was confused, you were crying, begging me to come home, something about an ambulance. I felt the blood drain from my face. I told Bob that I had to leave, something was up at home and I had to leave. I felt that I had to get home fast. I ran from the cafe and frantically scanned for Mike and Chris, maybe they could give me a lift home if I was fast. My God I hope you are ok. I ran across the road at the Corn Exchange. Looking for Mike and heading for the bus stop. Hope you are ok, whats happened? Saw a taxi and waved it down. He stopped, I got in. I noticed that my hands were shaking, I put this down to having just run, but I knew that I was scared. You sounded terrified on the phone. I listened to the message again, wishing the taxi would hurry up, so much traffic in town. Time had slowed to that awful creep. After what seemed like an hour, I got out of the taxi, gave him a tenner and told him to keep the change. I ran into the house shouting “Bear, Bear where are you? Are you ok?” You called me into the room and I saw you, BOOM, I knew something was seriously wrong. You were white and it was a colour that I hadnt seen on anyone before. Your eyes were odd and you seemed quiet and confused. You told me that you had collapsed twice and rang an ambulance but they would’t come. I asked you to slow down and tell me what happened. You were in the garden, near the big tree (I moved your gardening stuff about 2 weeks later when I found it, it broke my heart) when you got a massive pain in your head. The pain became mixed with pressure and it creeped from your head down your neck, it was so severe that it paralysed you and made you sink to the floor. You told me that you were fighting to stay concious as you lay in the garden at the foot of the sycamore, you couldnt move and you could see the grass close up. The pain had gone. You didnt know how long you were there for, but the paralysed feeling passed. You started to crawl to the house and you said you couldn’t lift your head up, it was like it was too heavy. You got into the kitchen after an eternity and pulled yourself up onto your feet. You then got a drink and stood there for a minute. You said you were shaking and felt sick. Then BOOM the pain/pressure came back. This time with a vengance. It overcame you quickly and passed out as you hit the floor. Time passed, you had no idea how much when you woke. You crawled into the room and sat next to the phone and rang and ambulance. They said that you had fainted and it wasnt an ambulance matter. You then rang the emergency Doctors and they said they would send transport as soon as it came available. Then you rang me and left a message. I asked you how long the transport would be, it didnt matter because I had already decided to take you myself. I got the keys, started the car and half carried, half walked you to the car. You looked ill and I was scared. I drove carefully down to the health clinic in Meanwood/ Sheepscar. It was packed, always is. I walked you in and we informed reception that you were here and that I thought that you were seriously ill. They asked to sit down and they would speak to a Dr. Seline Derrick was there with her son and I spoke briefly to her. We then went to find a seat. The only chair was one next to Carl Herbert who was there with his daughter. We sat down and told him why we were there. Thats when your head started to hurt again and you said you were going to be sick. I took you to the toilet and you were really shaky and afraid. I was trying to be tough and manly saying everything was going to be ok. you had a drink and I couldnt take my eyes off you. I was so scared, I can’t imagine how you were feeling. We went back out and they called us in. We went to see the Doctor, I can’t remember his name but we owe him everything. He examined you and you told him everything. When you described what happened to you his attitude changed. It was during your description of the pain/pressure that I saw his face change BOOM. He tried to look calm, but he didnt. He told us “I am sure everything is ok, but I would like you to take Heather to casualty, immediatley. I am not sure what is wrong but I want her to go now”. Its a good job he told us to go. I had to decide which Hospital to go to and I chose Jimmys. I walked you to the car again and as I did I had some horrible thoughts about what was wrong. All your migraines, all the drugs, all the stress, the smoking and the way you dashed about, it was running through my head at high speed. It was distracting me and making me panicky. I didn’t show you how I was feeling and fortunatley you were feeling too ill to notice. We drove to Jimmys and parked near the crossing and the pub. We walked across to casualty but don’t I really remember that bit. We registered at the triage desk and handed them the Doctors letter. They asked us to take a seat and somebody would call us soon. BOOM You started to feel sick. I asked for something to be sick in. BOOM You started to feel dizzy and said the pressure was coming back. I was getting agitated and saying that you felt you were going to pass out. Told them you needed to lay down. You started to cry and hold your head. Over and over again you were saying “My head, my head, it hurts, Oh God, MY HEAD, HELP, somebody help me”. Clutching your head and rocking. I was scared, so scared. I was shouting at them to get a Doctor. They led us to a cubicle, out of the way of the other patients. You were still crying. You said is was going off again. It was easing. We got you lying down and a nurse came in. Started to check your blood pressure. I was talking to you and trying to keep you calm. Telling you that “Everything is going to be ok, its just ……” Just what, who was I trying to kid. I knew something was wrong, something serious. I kept on speaking to you and the nurse left saying ” Your blood pressure is high but you seem ok”. BOOM. It started again. This time it was different. Your eyes rolled back, I was shouting for a Doctor or a Nurse, we were alone in a room and you were screaming. Clutching your skull and screaming. Your body was rigid and your legs and feet were drumming on the bed.BOOM BOOM. Inside your head, nobody new it yet, an artery had burst and blood was pouring into your brain. You were having a Subarachnoid Haemorrhage. You were fitting and you had wet yourself. I finally knew what terrified meant. Nurses and Doctors flooded the room. They put you on your side and held you still. I stood and watched , I was helpless. They let me hold your hand. I held it and stroked your hair. I told you over and over “I Love You, I Love You, everythings going to be ok, I Love you” My baby, my baby. I love you. The left hand side of your body was funny and the right hand side of your face was slack. Oh God I was so alone at that point. You came back round and sort of woke up. This is hard to write. Its hard to go back and remember what was happening. I am crying as I write this. One of the Doctors told me they were going to take you for a CT scan to check what was going on. With that they gave you some medication. I held your hand and walked round to the scan place with you. You were still almost conscious and we were talking. I was explaining to you where they were taking you. You understood. I had to wait in a room on my own whilst they scanned your head. The TV was on, it was a rugby game. I rang my Mum and asked her to come. I wanted my Mummy. Mum said she would come straight over. As I sat in that room, our life together went through my head. Where we met, how I fell in love with you, the flat, the house, good times and bad, when you told me you were pregnant, the day Louis was born, when you took me to see the house in Chapel Allerton and how excited you were, when we moved in, how you helped me get my job, everything. Little things like how you dried your hair in the mornings, sitting on the end of the bed, the way you pucker your lips up to light a fag!. I realised how much my life was yours. I was angry, why you, what was wrong? I threw a remote control across the room and it broke. Finally after a 20 minute lifetime they came back out with you still on the trolley. I walked with you and again held your hand. I was very conscious that this may be it. The last time I held your hand. They took us back into the room we were in. They hooked you up to monitors and machines and we talked. I cant remember what we said but I was reassuring you. You seemed calm and not quite there. BOOM. A doctor came in with the images of your brain. He asked me to come over and he put them on a screen. He started to talk and he pointed to some “white spots” that shouldn’t be there. I didnt really know what I was looking at, but I nodded. BOOM He said “I am really sorry Mr Howland. Your wife has had a very serious bleed on her brain. The bleed is very serious and these white spots are blood that has leaked onto her brain” I asked him “How serious?” he said “There is a very good chance that she will die”……………………. I felt everything slip. My grasp on my life, the whole world slipped. My heart exploded in my chest, I couldn’t breath and I felt sick. I looked at you across the room. I felt sick. I couldnt lose you. It wasn’t supposed to happen. I asked him if I should tell you. He said “Thats up to you”. In the time that it took me to walk across the room. I decided to tell you that you had a bleed on your brain, but nothing more. IF you were going to die I didnt want to scare you. I sat down. My soul was screaming and my heart was bleeding. I tryed to stay calm and I think I managed to do it. I held your hand and kissed you. You asked what he had said. I looked you in the eye and I lied to you. I said “You have had a bleed on your brain, but its going to be ok”. We sat together and held hands. It hurt to look at you. You looked ill. I had your clothes in a plastic bag. I thought that you were dying. BOOM BOOM BOOM It was time for the second bleed. The pain came back. I thought this is it and I started to cry I was holding your hand. I love you, I love round and round my head, like a mantra that could stop this from happening. It didnt work, no matter how much I loved you, it was still happening. You started to fit again. It was worse this time. I was holding your hand. Doctors everywhere. Your body went completely rigid, you were making horrible noises “nnnnnnngh nnnnnnngh nnnnnngh”. I saw you going and I held you. I was a coward. I wanted say I love you and always will, what came out was ” Oh God Heath, I am so scared”. You lost consciousness then. You didnt wake up again for four days.The last thing you heard me say was “I am scared”. I should have been comforting you. More Doctors came. They were putting tubes down your throat. Needles in your arm. I was still holding you and crying. I couldn’t stand it. IT WASN’T SUPPOSED TO BE HAPPENING. It was a normal day. It was sunny. I didnt want the last words to be ” I am scared”, turn back the clock, I have so much more to say. GOD PLEASE. It was all happening fast again. “We are taking Heather for another scan, “Her condition is critical”, “Notify ICU at LGI”. I asked what I should do. BOOM They said “Notify her family and get them down here ASAP”. My Mum arrived as they took you for the second scan. We went to the same room where I broke the remote. I told my Mum all that had happened. She said she was so sorry. I cried. I was losing you, how could I stop it? I promised to always be there for you but I was useless to you when you needed me most. I am sorry. They came out from the scan with you and I held you again. I couldnt stop kissing you. We went back to the room. The Doctor came in and told me you had had a second bleed. I already knew. He told me it was one of the most serious bleeds he had personally ever seen. He told me that you probably wouldnt make it. Those words destroyed me. Didnt he understand that it was not possible. It wasnt time for you to die, me and you were supposed to be going out tonight. We were going to grow old together. I couldnt think at this point and I was just functioning. I felt numb and empty. Your Mum and Dad arrived. I told them everything. It must have been hard for them. You are their daughter and here I was telling them that you probably not going to be coming home from this. The Doctor came out and said they had a bed for you at the Neuro Intensive Care Unit (Ward 6) at the LGI. They said it would be the best place for you as it is one of the best Neuro Units in the country. They said we were very fortunate to have it on our doorstep. I asked if I could go in the ambulance but they said no. I asked your Mum if she would drive our car back to the house and she said she would. They got you ready for the ambulance. I kissed you and held you then I left with my Mum. We walked out of the hospital and it was raining. The sky was grey and it was raining. I was crying. Nobody could see that because of the rain. We got in the car. Everything was a blur after that. I had to ring my Mum to find out the next bits as I have no memory of the rest of the day at all. None. We drove up to the house so that Mum could drive the car. We then got a taxi to LGI. As we got in the lift the Nurse, who had accompanied you from Jimmys to the LGI, was just leaving. She said that you were just being settled in. We then went to the ward.Day 2May 22nd 2005LOUIS It was early in the morning and I am not sure if I slept or not. I remember, last night, my Mum asking if I had any sleeping tablets. I had some and gave one to Mum. I didn’t have one myself, if I had had one then, last night, I think I would still be taking them now. I realised I was in bed, it was early. I never noticed how big our bed was. I was in it alone and all too aware of where you were. The bed swallowed me up, it was huge and empty without you. I thought of Louis, what was I going to say to him? He was at Becky’s, went yesterday morning before all this. I lay there and tried to imagine what you would want me to say. My heart ached, I was tired, and I felt old. I asked Becky not to tell him. I rang Ward 6 and asked how you were and they told me there was no change. I was functioning but not awake. I got up and got in the shower. All my actions were automatic. It was like I wasn’t really there; I was a fly on the wall watching a stranger taking a shower. No connection with myself. Torn up, hurting and numb all at the same time. My thoughts were with you, every second, every long lonely second. You were lying in a Ward with 5 or 6 other people. You had tubes everywhere. I was thinking of you and saying your name. I was loosing you and it hurt. Mum got up and asked what I wanted to do. She looked like she hadn’t slept that well, despite the lorazapam that I had given her last night. I said we should go down and see you. I came down stairs and washed up. Strange thing to do, it filled some time whilst I waited for mum. I had told a few people by now. Friends like Jimi, Dave, Vince, Mike, told family, Christian, my Dad; it was weird hearing their reactions, because I couldn’t connect with them. They were ghosts to me. All that was real was you. I rang work and spoke to Andy Magner. He thought I was joking. I had to tell him it was true. I asked him not to tell everyone and asked him to say I didn’t want contact with people. It was hard talking to people that I loved and cared for, never mind the people I worked with. I didn’t want a lot of fuss. I needed some time. I didn’t want sympathy or chin up messages, I wanted to feel everything that was happening, and I needed to feel all of it. Even the despair and the loneliness. I wanted to hurt. I heard your phone bleeping in the night and I got up and found it. The battery was low, I panicked. I knew that if your phone went off you would die. My pulse was racing, I quickly found your charger and plugged in your phone. Ahhhh panic over, but better keep my eye on your phone. Perfectly rational in the early hours, perfectly rational when I woke up. Keep the phone on and you would live. How simple is that. I clung to that idea for weeks. Maybe I should have looked for a God to speak to; instead I looked to Motorola for your salvation. We got in the car and set off to town. On the way down I called in at Tony’s house. He wasn’t there so I left a message with his mate Dave. You gave Dave that Kadinsky print that we had, he was dead happy with it. Dave was really good he gave me a hug and told me if I needed anything then I should ask. We drove down to the LGI. It was to become your home and my chosen place to be for a long, long time. I got to know the hospital quite well. All the routines etc. There is a special car park for ICU visitors. We parked there and made our way in. In through the Jubilee wing, in to the lifts, up to floor C and along to Neuro Intensive Care. My heart was heavy as I made that journey and I dreaded going in. What if…..What if? I was desperate to see you. We got there and pressed the intercom. “Hello how can I help you?” “We are here to see Heather Howland” “Ok come in and wait in one of the waiting rooms”. We went in and Mum got a coffee from the machine. After a while a Nurse came in, I think she was called Hazel, she said she had been looking after you overnight and that you had not got any worse. You hadn’t got any worse, I tried to make those words into ‘Heather is so much better today’ but I couldn’t. It was just that ‘You hadn’t got any worse’. I went in to see and burst into tears, first of the day. I held you and spoke to. Didn’t know if you could hear or not but I spoke to you. I kissed you. I told you I loved you. I told you that if the worse came to the worse I would bring Louis up how you would have wanted. Oh god Louis, what was I going to say to him? I kept saying “Come on Bear, wake up, it’s going to be fine”. You didn’t even move. I spoke to you non-stop for an eternity. I told you about all the good times we had had. I cried whilst I did this, I thought the good times were over. A nurse came and said they had to do their observations. I had to move but asked if I could watch they said it was ok. This was horrible to watch and it never got easier to. First of all she called your name. “Heather, Heather can you hear me Heather” “Do you know where you are Heather?” “Ok love I am just going to have to cause you a little pain Heather” and with that they would get a pen/pencil and put the hard edge on the inside of one of your fingers. Then they would squeeze it really hard, hard enough to leave bruises and indentations on your fingers. It looked extremely painful. You just laid there, no movements, no sound, nothing. For me it hurt to see them hurting you. Hadn’t you been through enough? When they got no response they used to press the bone at the top of your eye socket and push your head hard, down onto your pillow. When I had a moment I tried both of these. I may have been feeling numb, but not that numb. Excruciating. It showed me the depth of your illness. A Doctor came on to the ward. His name was Mr Jake Timothy. A specialist in his field and one of the best Neurosurgeons in the country. He was Asian, I thought by the looks of him and he told me he was the consultant that was going to be working on your case. He took me to a light screen and began to show me more scan pictures that had been done. He showed me the first, second and third ones in order. He pointed out the blood spots on your brain and the first ones were bad but the second are third ones were worse. He was very honest with me and I told him not to dress it up. I wanted to know if you would live or die. He was true to his word and told me it didn’t look good and this was one of the worse bleeds he had ever seen. You had had 2 Grade 5 haemorrhages. One of them usually kills the person stone dead. He said he didn’t think you would make it and if you survive the damage would probably be that bad that I wouldn’t be able to look after you. He said it all depended on you and the next few days. He said that I shouldn’t look further ahead than the next ten minutes and to keep doing it in ten minute stints. You try it break up the day into minute intervals, how long does it become? He said there was a danger of a rebleed and that they wanted you stable enough to operate to stop the rebleed. All the information was going round and round my head. She’s going to die, she’s, going to die, rebleed, operation, ten minute stints, Louis, Louis, she’s going to die. What about renewing our vows or Louis starting High School? It started to sink in. You were in a coma. A COMA. You were in a coma and you could die at anytime. I realised then the reality of it. You were in a coma and people in coma’s die. I felt myself again and I was sinking, deeper. I wasn’t sure that I wanted to feel the rest so I pushed it down. I had to stay strong; I had to look after our son. Would I make a good mother as well as a father? I was like a child having a tantrum inside, I DONT WANT TO BE HIS MUM! I DIDNT ASK FOR THIS! I DONT WANT IT ANYMORE!!!!!. I wish some one could have taken away my responsibilities. I wanted to sink into oblivion. I knew I could, it wasn’t far away, I could have just let go and sank. Nobody could have touched me down there. I could have hidden in my grief. I needed you so badly. But what about Louis? People came and went all day. Not sure who, or when. I sat with you all day. Swapping seats with your Mum and Dad. Your Dad was very sad. I didn’t think he would be, he was though. The seat next to your bed never got cold, my love. I was never far from your side. Mum asked me again what to do with Louis. I had to decide. You were very close to dying. I made a decision. I asked if Becky would bring him over. I asked them to tell him you were in hospital but not to tell him how serious it was. Again it was a blur until Becky came into the ward and said Louis was in the waiting room. I didn’t want to do this. More than anything, I did not want this job. I was walking out of the ward knowing that what I had to say was going to break our son’s heart. I did not want to be there. It was hard coping with my own emotions. I was trying to get the words right in my head, rehearsing it. He looked bewildered, all his family was there. Where was his mum? Nobody had really told him anything. Your Mum and Dad was there, my mum, Becky and James. I walked and asked Louis to come and sit with me in a quieter room. I don’t want to do this. We go into a room, alone. I sat on a brown leather chair and Louis sat on my knee. I held him for a bit, just sat and held him. I didn’t cry yet. I asked him what he knew and he told me “just that mum was in hospital”. I took a deep breath and tried to stay calm. With everybody else it was easy to control my emotions, this was different, this was our boy. I told him that you had had a bleed on your brain. I told him it was very serious. He started to cry and I held him. He asked me if you were going to die. In my head I was rolling a dice, when it stopped it landed on TELL THE TRUTH. I told him that she might die. Tears were rolling down his face and mixing with mine. I told him that when he went in he had to say all things he wanted to say to her. Tell her because we may not get another chance. I carried him in. I hadn’t carried our boy properly like this for a long time. He didn’t seem like a big boy now. He seemed very young and vulnerable. I realised the importance of what we were about to do and it made my chest and throat ache. We got to your bed and Louis asked if he could kiss you, he couldn’t reach so I lifted him up and over all the wires and tubes and bleeping machinery. I held him over you while he cried and kissed you his tears landed on your face but you didn’t notice. I did and it crushed me. He sat on my knee then and held your hand. He said he loved you and he wanted you to come home. He wanted his Mummy to wake up and hug him back. I would have given anything for that, my life, anything. I love you. It started to get late and it was time for Louis to go. I got an idea. I asked a nurse for some scissors and she got me some. Louis and I then went to the head of your bed. We each cut a lock of your hair and one of the nurses got us some ribbon and we tied them up. I told Louis to carry it with him. He was sobbing as he cut your hair. I have a lot of work to do writing the rest of this!!

Hi! I am so glad you are all here. I've read through so many stories and my heart is touched, as I too, suffered a SAH after a ruptured brain aneurysm followed by a silent stroke after the coiling procedure! Yes, I am thankful to be alive and have had no major neurological defecits. My story is much like all of yours. I've been a masssage therapist for 15 years and for the last 10, have worked in a clinic where we treat people who've been in auto accidents. On Jan. 27, 2010, I went to work as usual. I was feeling fine for the most part. Around 10:30 am, I started feeling a little funny and thought maybe I needed to eat something, as I hadn't had breakfast yet. So I ate 1/2 my sandwich and continued with work. As I was massaging my patient, I began to feel a bit disoriented and my vision seemed out of focus. I kept massaging, telling myself the feeling would pass. The feeling continued and things quickly went down hill from there. I could hear a whooshing sound in my head and then a loud pop, like an explosion of sorts. As the "pop" occurred, I felt as if someone had cracked a bat across the back of my head. I was still massaging the patient, wild thoughts going through my head and trying to maintain control of myself! I knew something was very wrong. Suddenly, the muscles in my neck and back seized up, paralysing me for a few seconds. I told the patient we were finished and left the room. I took the chart up to the front desk (not sure how I got there) and told the office manager I was sick and going to the bathroom and I would leave the door unlocked in case something happened! I made it to the bathroom where I became violently ill. I could hear my co-workers outside the door, asking me questions. I came out and they helped me to the break room, still asking me questions. I could hear them talking, but didn't know what they were saying! I told them I was not trying to be mean, but could they please shut up! I then stumbled to our laundry room and began vomiting into the wash tub. Another explosion inside my head... I yelled out as I felt my self going down. My co-worker helped me to the floor as I continued to be sick. I heard them say the ambulance was on its way. I heard the sirens and seemed to be in and out of consciousness. I was taken to the nearest hospital, scans done and told I had a brain bleed and would be taken to another hospital where a neurosurgeon would see me. A nurse asked me if there was anyone she should call. I gave her my cel phone and my daughter's name. I heard them say my condition was very grave. I struggled to maintain control of the thoughts in my head and to stay awake. To shorten this already long story, I was in intensive care for 9 days and moved to a regular ward for 2 more. My 24 yr.old daughter stayed by my side at the hospital 24/7 and was amazing. I was home for a month and then went back to work - a little at a time. I am no longer doing massage, as it proved to be too demanding physically. I am now doing administrative work for same clinic. I am so very thankful to my co-workers who have helped me along the way and continue to be so supportive to me. This year has been like a roller coaster ride that doesn't seem to stop! I have good days and bad. Currently, I'm an emotional wreck - cry often, feel angry and sad and then guilty for feeling angry and sad! I know these things are normal considering the situation. I'm in the process of finding a therapist and know there's light at the end of the tunnel. My neurologist is working with me to find the right medications and keeps telling me I'm doing remarkably well. I do have a wonderful family and friends that are here for me and they keep me going! Thank you all for this site, it's been helpful to know I'm not alone in this!

Hey there! I'm a new member. This story isn't actually about me, it's about my mom. (It's a bit long just to warn you) First though, I need to start with some background information: My family are all US citizens (In my case I was born and raised there) and my dad works for a company that subsequently works for USAID. Barely a year ago, my parents and I moved to Nairobi, Kenya for his job. There's an 11 year gap between my brother and I (he's 25; I'm 14), so he stayed in the US for work and school. I was greatly opposed to moving, but when we did I loved it there. My family is originally from Africa, so go fig. My dad loved it too. My mom however, was a mix of emotions. You see, my mom had what some would call an extremely difficult childhood, so she has trust issues, as well as she suffers from depression. She always told me the only thing she really lived for was her family. Anyway, a few weeks before her SAH, she was having problems with my brother and his love life, the usual problems with my dad, and I can't say my teenageness was really helping. I knew that she was suffering because she couldn't get out the house and she had nothing to do and I think she felt her life was getting no where. So one day, we decided to go to this new restaurant that opened called the Taj Mahal. I was really excited, and I think my mom was happy to get out too. The thing is, on opening night (It was a Friday) they had nothing ready. My dad was fed up after waiting for about two hours and said we were leaving. I was crushed. We said we'd go to this place called Village (It's like a hangout place with restaurants and shops and such), but I still sulked in the car. I saw I was making my parents unhappy so I stopped. We found this really nice Chinese Food place and ended up having a great time that night. I thought the night was perfect untill we got home. We live in a big apartment type thing so my Dad and I went down the hallway to change when my mom started complaing about a splitting headache. I came out of my room to see if she was okay and, ever the trooper, she said she was fine. As I was walkig back to my room, I heard my mom cry out and I rushed back again. She was sitting on the floor of the hallway clutching her head whimpering (My mom NEVER cries). By this time my dad was there too and we had absolutely no idea what was going on. We helped my mom to her room and she said that all along her neck and back was hurting as well as the migrane. My dad whipped out the Bengay cream (analgesic heat rub) and immediately started treating the problem areas while I consoled my mom and fetched things that she needed. When I look back now I know that was when she had her aneurysm. I sorely wish I had known what SAH was back then. When my mom was feeling semi okay, my dad started calling hospitals to see when was the earliest my mom could get looked at. I was in my room on my laptop trying to see what was wrong with my mother, but every time I typed in her symptoms, the results didn't seem quite right. I realize now we should've taken her straight to the emergency room. When my dad called Karen Hospital (One of the best in Kenya), they said they could have a look see on Monday. We asked my mom if she could hold up untill then and, ever the trooper, she said yes. Just to give you an example of how my mom is, through the whole weekend she kept apologising for "ruining our night" despite numerous times when we told her her health was much more important. Also, another thing you should know, my mom LOATHES hospitals, with a passion. That's understandable because a few years back they found a tumour in her belly (which is removed), but hospitals can be traumatising. So on Monday morning my dad took her to the hospital while I went to school (It was my final week). When I came back my Dad told me the doctor had said that the only thing that was wrong was her incredibly high blood pressure. I was so relieved because then I wasn't aware of how massivly incorrect that diagnosis was. On thing that should've tipped me off was the fact that my mom was a very consiencous eater. As you may know, when you have the aneurysm, it causes your blood pressure to skyrocket. So for the next few weeks we focused on regulating her food and made sure she didn't have salt (my dad even hid the spices; my mom can be very stubborn!). When she went again to the doctor, he said her blood pressure was normal now, which we were all happy about because a week from then my mom and I were planning to go back to the US for a visit. The only problem was: my mom was STILL feeling those terrible headaches. The doctor prescribed some meds that she was supposed to take while in the US. I will never ever forget the night of June 8th 2010. We went to Jomo Kenyatta airport to fly back home. My dad dropped us and thankfully he decided to wait untill we got past security to leave. We got past the entrance to the airport where they have to scan your luggage and carry-ons when my mom started complaining about the headaches again. I asked if there was anything I could do and she said to hurry because she needed to sit. I obeyed and when were in line to check our luggage she asked me to call my father and ask if she could take her meds now. That was done and my father said sure, but while she was reaching for them, she clutched her head and collapsed. It took me a split second to realize she hadn't got back up again. I remember getting to my knees and shaking her screaming "Mom!" as loud as I could. I had sincerely hoped that it was a bad dream (I often have dreams like this) and I would wake up. I soon lost the energy to shake her and I started sobbing and screamed "Please! Somebody help my mom! I need help!" I was vaguely aware of my dad beside me now. There was a nice American guy that was trying to calm me down and get help while my dad was screaming at the airport officials to do something. I remember one airport official told me to just "Shut up". Right then he became the perfect object to take out my fear and anger on. I'm not proud of this, but needless to say I think I destroyed his self esteem that night. We were on the ground for a good 10-20 min. before paramedics came. They started asking a bunch of questions untill my dad said quote "Just get her to a damn ambulance! Can't you see she needs help?!" (Till then she hadn't been concious and had been convulsing). They then put her in a wheel chair and wheeled her through the parking lot to an ambulance. I say ambulance for lack of better words because it was just a van with a stretcher and some chairs and a siren. I thought for sure she was going to die. We managed to get to The Mater Hospital (Which we found out later was a Catholic hospital) and they got her to the emergency room. It turns out that these two people (Who I now refer to as Saints) had been following the ambulance. Their names are Evans and Sophy Mosomi and they had seen everything that had happened and decided to help us out. They called the airline company and sorted everything out while my father sorted things out with the hospital and I went crazy. I remember this all happened at night time. I had to get away from all of it and I remember I stumbled out of the emergency room and blindly made my way to the chapel. I bumped into the priest who asked me the name of my mom and told me he would pray for her and let me in. After I was finished I went back to the emergency room where I slept overnight on a chair. My father was there too, but he didn't sleep. The next day the doctor (Dr. Kiboi) told us that she had suffered a stroke due to an aneurysm. He said from the scans they did it turns out she had SAH. He wrote it down for us and for about two more days it burned a hole in my pocket. We had to stay in the hospital sleeping on chairs in case something happened to her. Finally I told my dad that if I stayed in the hospital one more day was going to go mad. He dropped me home the next night and I stayed home the following day. I logged on to the internet and told close friends what happened and updated my brother. I also went on to good ole Wikipedia and looked up Subarachnoid Hemorrage. I was scared and alarmed by what I read, but at least I knew. For about a week more I went back and forth to the hospital and dealt with visitors. Finally, the doctors said my mother was stable, but they wanted to send her to South Africa. Apparently, they could do the Angiogram there but if it didn't work they couldn't do a clipping. We agreed and she was flown there on a med jet while my father and I took a commercial flight. It was surprisingly empty considering the world cup is going on. She was safe when we arrived (Last Sunday) and they said they wanted to do the procedure that Tuesday. Tuesday came and they said they couldn't do it because her veins had spasmed or something and that a clipping would end her life because of the placement of the vein. So they decided to wait untill that Friday to do it. The next day she bled again. they managed to save her and put a drain in her head to clear the excess liquid and pushed the date back to Tuesday (Tomorrow). As the days went on I grew more and more hopefull and even started to enjoy myself here in South Africa when last night a nurse knocked on our door (We stay at the hospital) and said that my mom had bled AGAIN, and this time, they might not be able to save her. Thank God, Thank God, Thank the almighty God, they saved her still. However, she's seeped further into unconciousness than is good. We just got back from a visit with her and we're praying and hoping she can wake up or make some kind of movement. This is our situation now and I just wanted to share her story and I hope with all my heart that I can say later it ended well and she recovers. -Liz

Hiya, my name is lynz and I suffered a SAH 3 years ago. Wow, what a day! To cut a very long story short my 4 year old daughter saved my life! I collapsed and became unconscious, I was fitting also and being violently sick and well, it wasnt pretty. My husband was away working, so in steps my 4 year old, who completely took over. She looked after me and her 18 month old baby sister for 16 hours by herself. She moved chairs to stop me hurting myself and didn't move me, which the surgeons think stemmed the bleed. She put her baby sister to bed, made chocolate sauce and ham butties for tea? She tried to call the paramedics and stayed with me all night, explaining to her little sister that mummy was asleep. This all started at about 3:30 in the afternoon. I was found the next morning and rushed to hospital with meningitis? My family was told that I had a 5% chance of surviving it and to say goodbye, but hey 3 years on and some coils and here I am writing this and my beautiful angel is blissfully asleep in bed, unaware that she's a hero!

Wednesday evening 07/01/09, I noticed a sharp metallic taste as I ate my meal - my stomach churns even now 16 months later when I think of it! I still can’t face the same meal! Thank heaven it wasn’t my favourite! I’d felt a tad below par for a few weeks, it started after a really bad headache which I’d thought was a migraine. Ever since then I’d had a dull head ache every morning which wore off during the day. Just after I finished eating my meal, the same type of headache came back with a vengeance. I thought my head would explode. After a few minutes the pain subsided, I went to get a glass of water, took two steps forward and collapsed. I lay there unconscious for a several minutes, when I came round my mouth was strangely dry and crusty around the corners. I was home alone, I crawled to the phone to call my daughter, and she said to call NHS direct. NHS direct asked a lot of questions during which time I was violently sick. I could hear the woman calling my name and could tell by her tone she was cross with me; she probably thought I was drunk! She said as I’d collapsed I should get checked out and asked if I knew where my local A & E was. That was that, what was I making a fuss about! I called my daughter back, she lives over 100 miles away, I had a job convincing her not to drive over. I told her I would get checked out in the morning if I didn’t feel any better. The next thing I remember was Friday the 9th. I awoke post operative a man in green scrubs standing next to me, then I heard one of my daughters gentle voice ‘Mum your in Hospital, you had a brain haemorrhage and you’ve had an operation. You had an aneurysm, you’re lucky you survived, Mum your very poorly!’ * I floated in and out of Morphine induced sleep with my daughters and my nephew repeatedly giving me the details of how I’d got there. Over and over they told me until I was satisfied. As I lay there listening I felt a strange feeling of peace and tranquillity, a calmness which wasn’t befitting my situation. I thought ‘I’ve got to get through this; somehow I have to pull through! Thursday afternoon after I’d collapsed two friends had phoned; I’d chatted to both and told them I had a migraine. My daughter had called me later in the afternoon to check how I was; we had a ‘normal’ conversation. I’d convinced her that I would be fine after a good rest. Just as the call ended I’d asked what we were having for our Christmas dinner and sounded very surprised when she said we’d had it two weeks ago. She immediately made plans to come over. At the same time she alerted my sister in law and my nephew who came straight away. When they arrived I was in a confused state and complained that my head and the back of my neck hurt, I was sick whilst they were there. They took me straight to A&E where I was rushed through triage. By the time my daughter arrived a scan had confirmed a bleed on my brain and plans were in place to transfer me to Hope Hospital Salford where I was diagnosed as having a grade 2 SAH and was to have a procedure using platinum to coil a ruptured aneurism in the left post comm artery as soon as a slot came available. I have no memory of any of this. I’d been chatting coherently all the time and given the doctors several explanations as to why my head and neck hurt ranging from; a ski accident, whiplash from a car accident or having drunk too much wine! It’s really spooky not remembering. Perhaps my mind had shut it all out. When I came round post op I wasn’t shocked or as frightened as I’d expect, it was as though I knew! My first days on HDU were mixed with pain and a constant round of essential checks to keep me alive, everyone moved faster than normal, noise louder and sharper, lights were blinding everything was different. Morphine released me from my mantra ‘I must get through this’ as well as providing welcome respite from the pain, its induced hallucinations kept me occupied. I was convinced there were parties every night after visiting. Book clubs and painting clubs celebrated their achievements with cheese and wine. Their partying was full of noisy laughter keeping me awake. I was getting more and more miffed at being left out. I complained that I was uninvited and only discovered that the ‘parties’ coincided with the handover at the nurses station on shift change after quite a few restless nights! After 5 days I left HDU, this signified the next stage of my recovery. I was happy. Unfortunately this was short lived. I developed complications within 24 hours and gradually lost the ability to communicate as my brain went into vasospasm. My family had come to visit and noticed that some of my words didn’t make sense, soon none of my words made sense. I developed a language all of my own which amused me, but not my family! I call this my ‘eski weskit washin elves and benzyl’ phase. Eventually I lost the ability to communicate in any form and threw a pencil at the wall in sheer frustration because I couldn’t remember how to use it let alone what it was called. The last thing I recall was the frightened, bewildered faces of my family as I was packed off to HDU -and to the parties! Several scans an angiogram and four days later I started to make sense of what was being said to me, slowly but surely my comprehension and communicating powers returned. I can’t explain the euphoria when I spoke my first sentence and got a response which proved I’d been understood. My family squealed with delight. They’d been given little hope and tried to prepare themselves to accept and cope with what ever part of me that came back from this. Just so long as I came back. It was decided that dehydration was the cause of my demise. There were no more set backs, I maintained enough progress to go home after almost 3 weeks. Before I left I was advised that I must surrender my driving license. The specialist nurse said not to drive until I’d been given the green light at my follow up appointment in 3 to 6 months time! I was devastated; it signified the loss of my independence which up until that moment in time I had not allowed myself to even contemplate. As far as I was concerned I’d be up and running as per norm in 3 months tops! What was she saying? My heart sank as I was told something of what I might experience in my recovery. She told me that it would be like taking ‘baby steps’, to listen to my body. It slowly dawned on me that my life had changed for ever, my future, uncertain. I decided there and then to take each day as it comes and never to be beaten! And to stay positive and strong. Shortly after I got home a fistful of hair fell out where the coils had been placed. It was nothing to worry about and soon grew back! Visitors exhausted me; I couldn’t cope with washing and getting dressed without having a rest in-between for weeks. And when I managed to get up and dressed everyday fatigue plagued me. Thoughts of going out of the house on my own were daunting; the first time I did was planned with military precision! When out of the house I felt fatigued really quickly, I felt disorientated, dizzy and panicky. It felt like everyone was rushing toward me aggressively, my reactions were slow. I was noise sensitive light sensitive and I clung onto who ever I was with. Then there was the long pause in conversation whilst I word searched, the stuttering and short term memory loss. When I eventually got to drive again where had I parked the car! (Post-its are a wonderful invention and for me have been a life saving one!)Then there is the ‘brain fog’. Even now at times it still hurts to think! Recovery has proved challenging, it’s different for all of us. I’m still adapting. I have two wonderful daughters and friends who have been prepared to take on the ‘new me’ and adapted with me without judgement. I had other friends who were (sadly) not prepared to and didn’t! A good friend of mine always says to me that if I had a bandage on my finger I would get more sympathy. But this recovery of ours is not called a hidden illness for nothing. There are still times when I feel self conscious, sure it’s obvious that I’m searching for my words, or having difficulty getting the words out. And that the brain fog has taken over and I need time out! Times too when the hot flushes are unbearable, the night sweats even worse! But hey, so long as my platinum tiara stays put, I’ll cope! The first time I went supermarket shopping was a nightmare and for a couple of months fatigue got the better of me. Then one day I got into a wheel chair and had my first taste of semi independence, I never looked back. I soon graduated to one of those battery operated scooter things that have huge baskets on the front! Liberated at last! I knocked over rail after rail of fashion in M&S, got disowned by my pals but was the envy of many a husband of a shopoholic who fought to try a 3 point turn for me when I got stuck. When things got really bad I would pop over to the café where a very understanding member of staff had assisted me once when I’d had fatigue. She‘d arranged for chairs to be put near the café entrance so someone like myself could seek refuge if there was a queue. My world continues to change in ‘baby steps’ and there are times when I think I might never improve beyond the now and I grieve for the life I lost. But I’ve learned to celebrate every milestone. Recently I walked up a very small part of Catbells -a fell in the Lake District. It felt like a mountain, I had a huge smile on my face and my heart sang as I surveyed the magnificent view from where I sat. Life is full of fabulous firsts! I am grateful to all those At Hope Hospital who gave me back my life. I believe I was in the best place possible and have received excellent after care so far. I am grateful to the specialist nurse who gave me the address of this site of which I have been a ‘silent member’ since last year. I haven’t been able to write my story up until now and I have no idea why! I would like to say a BIG THANK YOU to all of you on this site for your input. You have been a constant source of inspiration to me. I think you’re all courageous. I’m proud to be one of a very special group of people known as a SAH SURVIVOR.

I’m 35, married and have a nine year old little girl. I was on holiday at the time of my bleed and just felt a little weird when it happened. Within the time it took me to tell my husband so I had lost the use of my right leg and looked like I had had a stroke. My husband called the ambulance and I was taken to Barnstaple and then transferred to Derriford in Plymouth. They carried out a ct scan and found two anuerysms - one had burst and the other was next to it. They coiled them both via the angiogram and so far so good. I’ve had another scan since and all appears to be fine. Sami, (RossiGirl)

Well-how do I start? I was 45 and I had an SAH after making love..yep…how embarrassing is that? It was a sunday in nov 2004 and I had the worst headache ever. My wife thought I was joking..I am a bit of a joker! Called the GP and told to take neurofen..then when she left me to go to the chemists I got worse-I was sick without realising it and within a few hours i had lost my marbles! My daughter was so shocked to see me go out to the Ambulance..and that is my first real memory on the ward in Southampton…a card my daughter drew of an ambulance..and i then knew something serious had happened! I had 2 negative angios which left me with a questionmark over my life. I am 20 months on and physically good ..but emotionally it is still an issue. I see a greater purpose in all this ..and had several weird experiences which were more than coincidence. Strangely I wouldn’t turn the clock back because it showed me many areas of my life that were in need of change. I learned that people and family are important..life is indeed precious..and that we have no real control over anything. Live for the moment..make your life count and try to make a difference…

July 25th 2005 – My SAH After a week of going backwards and forwards visiting the Doctor with a seriously bad headache and pain over my right eye, I had my SAH. My GP at the time had asked me if I had “personal problems” or “did I think that I had a brain tumour”, I was in tears at the time, due to the pain and he made me feel even more stupid after I mentioned that I’d had a probable small bleed on the brain, 4 years earlier and I was worried. He made me feel like a neurotic middle aged woman. He sent me away with a prescription (their new computer system had printed my age down as 103 and not 42...I remember laughing at it and then bursting into tears) for yet more painkillers and promised me that he would phone me the next day to see how I was doing and if I was still in a bad way, he would refer me to the hospital for tests. He phoned the next day, as promised, but said that he was happy continuing the course of treatment prescribed and wasn’t going to send me for any tests. I was angry, but in too much pain to argue and couldn’t believe what he had just said. So that was that. 4 years earlier, I’d had a probable small bleed on the brain, but the MRI results were inconclusive, it might have been or might not have been etc. and I was basically told just to get on with life (No other tests were given). This event had prayed on my mind for a good year afterwards and I gave up my job, as my GP seemed to think that the stress wasn’t helpful. I also had a problem with my right eye and was told not to drive for a while. After the first three months, I started to return to normal, but a little fearful of the future after I had read up my symptoms on the internet. I wished sometimes that I hadn’t, but looking back, I’m now thankful for doing so, as when it happened again I pretty much knew what I was having. On the evening of July 25th 2005, I sat on the settee and felt so awful, wondering how much more pain I could take. (I had visited the GP again that morning) I felt as though my head was going to blow and suddenly felt and heard a “whooshing of air” through my head (the same as I had 4 years ago. I shouted out to Eric in sheer panic, as it was the same symptoms of my warning bleed 4 years earlier. This time though, I lost all feeling down the left hand side of my body and I couldn’t feel my leg or walk. I knew that I was going to be sick and asked for something to be sick in, I couldn’t move. Apparently, I then had a seizure and I can remember Eric talking in the background and calling for Chris to phone for an ambulance. Little did I realise at the time that I had peed myself as well. I must have been drifting in and out of consciousness. I remember pleading with them that I didn’t want to go into hospital. My daughter was in her bedroom when the Paramedics turned up and I remember her sobbing as they took me out of the house. I was conscious at this point and able to shout out to Chris to take care of her for me. (This still reduces me to tears, just writing it down, as I still hear that fear in her voice.) I was put in the ambulance and went on to have another two grand mal seizures on the way to hospital and they put the blue light on. I can’t remember anything at this point and on reaching hospital, I was given a CT scan and it was confirmed that I had suffered a SAH. Eric tells me that I was still able to answer the hospital staff, but I can’t recall anything. When I finally came to, I was in a hospital bed with a Nurse inserting a catheter and commenting “Oh, you poor thing, you’ve started your period as well, it must be the shock.” My first thought was, great, ****** brilliant! I also couldn’t open my right eye; there wasn’t any pain, so I didn’t think too much about it at that stage. At least, I was still here and my thoughts were only of getting myself “fixed” and my survival instinct kicked in. I then drifted in and out of sleep, just so grateful that I was alive. The next morning, I was transferred to the Neuro Centre at Southampton, but I didn’t have a clue what was going on, even though they had probably told me. It seemed as though my body had shut down and I had to get through this as I wasn’t ready to leave my kids behind. Whilst I was awake, I felt mentally strong and looking back, I don’t know where this strength came from. I had no tears, just a sense of determination that I would deal with anything that needed to be done. I arrived at Southampton and was put in the High Dependency Unit, where Eric and Lauren were waiting for me. The Nurses were great, but it all felt so surreal and I felt so weak and tired. I was given an angiogram and a MRI and was told that an aneurysm had ruptured on my right post communicating artery and it would need to be coiled. I’d also suffered third nerve damage to my right eye and that’s why my eye remained shut. It was at the point when the Consultant mentioned that I probably wouldn’t be allowed to drive for 6 months to a year. The following day, I had my operation and I can remember asking the surgeon to please make sure that I was asleep before they started. The op went fine and the next day I was put onto a normal neuro ward. I was now extremely weak and tired and trying to eat or drink anything, was nearly impossible as I didn’t have the strength to move. It probably didn’t help with just having the one eye to use. The only food that appealed to me was the jelly and ice cream, but I’m not sure how the nurses expected you to eat when you were lying down and couldn’t feed yourself! I had severe lower back and leg pain and this continued for the next few weeks. I was told that the cause was the blood from the brain draining away down the spinal cord and irritating the nerve endings. I found this pain to be more severe than the headache and was given liquid morphine to help, it was worse than childbirth. As the day progressed, I felt worse and worse. I was in agony and didn’t know where to put myself and I was drifting in and out of sleep. Eric and Lauren came in to visit me and could see that I was in a bad way. I was talking to them and suddenly a strange feeling came over me and I started to feel shaky. I had another seizure; apparently my sodium level had been allowed to go too low and I was transferred to another ward and given oxygen. That was probably my worst day. Over the next few days, again, I just drifted in and out of sleep, in-between bouts of severe head and back pain. I could barely hold a conversation when people came into visit and the fatigue was overwhelming. I was given a black pirates eye patch to put over my bad eye, as it had started to open and I had bad double vision, even so, I was still feeling so very grateful that I had survived. A day or so later, I asked the nurses if they could remove the catheter so that I could go to the loo by myself. They helped me walk to the loo with my drip and I couldn’t believe how weak I was. It took the next few days for me to be able to walk to the loo myself with the help of my fluids stand. A week later I was deemed well enough to be transferred by ambulance to Poole Hospital, which is only a couple of miles from my home. What a great feeling it was, to know that I would be closer to my family and even though I was sleepy on the journey, I was able to spot each landmark as I got closer to home. It was such a good feeling and a step closer to going home. A week later, I was allowed to go home. Eric had put up grab rails in the loo and bathroom, as my strength had been zapped from my body. Thank goodness we lived in a bungalow, as I wouldn’t have been able to cope with stairs. It was such a good feeling though, to be home again and my spirit immediately picked up. At first, I could barely shower or take a bath without feeling worn out. Getting dressed again afterwards, was particularly hard work as I just couldn’t get my body to move. It felt as though my muscles had completely wasted away. Walking from room to room was the most that I could do. I could barely pour cornflakes into a bowl without having to sit down. A good friend gave me the loan of a wheelchair, as I could only walk a few yards unaided and so at least I was able to be taken for a walk outside in the fresh air. I felt a bit of a fraud sitting in it, as during the walks, I would get out, walk, holding onto the wheelchair as an aid. As soon as I got tired, I would sit back in it. I felt like the character from “Little Britain”! It didn’t help having double vision and wearing glasses that had been patched. It was like looking through Vaseline and I also couldn’t judge distance or height. Walking was a nightmare. Bad head and eye pain persisted for quite a few weeks and the lower back pain was still a problem, but it seemed to be gradually easing. My appetite was still very small and the weight was just dropping off me. Night time sleeping was a big problem for me. I couldn’t sleep without a light on; I was scared of the dark. Sometimes my dreams were so weird and vivid, that I didn’t know whether I was asleep or whether I was awake. Some nights, I could be awake until 4.00am, I would have a ringing in my ears and my legs would be jumpy and twitchy. I felt as though I would go mad! Looking back, I suppose the cocktail of drugs that I was taking, could have been the cause of some of these problems. For the first couple of months I wasn’t able to deal with very much at all. Form filling etc. my Husband had to take care of anything like that, as I couldn’t manage it. Mentally, I felt all over the place and it seemed as though I could only cope with thinking about getting better again. Nothing else seemed to matter. My short term memory was awful and I couldn’t absorb any information. I felt as though I was now living on a different planet. I could swing from laughter to tears of despair. My first visit to a Supermarket was traumatic and I didn’t cope at all well. My eyesight was awful, my legs weak and my brain went into overload with the bright lights, piped music, door alarms going off, children crying and people walking at me. It was all too much and I had to leave and sit in the car whilst my Husband finished the shopping. I cried my eyes out in desperation and wondered what the hell was happening to me. I was worried at first, about being left on my own in the house and the thought of “is it going to happen to me again” started to creep back. As the weeks passed, I became more confident being by myself, but I still had uneasy days if I was experiencing a bad headache. I had days where I would feel so low with trying to cope with the physical aftermath of the SAH that I would just escape to my bedroom and cry. Some days my legs were so weak that I could barely put one foot in front of the other, coupled with double vision and dizziness, I was a mess. I would become inconsolable and cry tears of frustration. I felt so frightened, so alone and felt as though nobody could help me. I always tried not to let my children see this, as I didn’t want them to worry. My Daughter Lauren had been very affected after my SAH and I didn’t want to cause any more pain. For the first few months, she talked endlessly about the SAH and its trauma. I could see her pain. Life at home was very different during the first 3 months, it certainly wasn’t normal. I cried buckets of tears over the thought that my children could have lost their Mum and I feared for the future. I felt like a different person now and wondered whether life could ever be the same again. I tried to return to work 3 months post SAH. I must have been crazy, as I wasn’t well enough physically or mentally. After 2 hours of hell, I left. What was I thinking of? Trying to work in front of a computer screen with double vision and telling everybody that “I was fine”. I wasn’t fine. I felt like a complete and utter failure that day. I went home in tears and it dawned on me that my recovery was going to be a lot longer than I thought. It was at this 3 month stage that the DVLA notified me to say that I could drive again, providing that I used my eye patch. I was over the moon, as I was told to expect a suspension for at least 6 months. Not being allowed to drive had felt like I was being punished and my independence completely taken away. I didn’t drive out by myself for a couple of weeks, as I still didn’t feel as though I was in control of my mind or body. When I eventually made my first car journey, literally just driving a few blocks away, I had to drive with the air conditioning blasting my face; I needed to feel the cold, needed to feel awake. It felt so very weird and also very scary. Even my feet didn’t feel as though they were part of my body. I seemed to over emphasise every movement that before the SAH, would have been so normal that I wouldn’t have had to think about what I was doing. May be it was the drugs blowing everything out of proportion, but I just didn’t feel in control, it wasn’t “me” in this body that I had returned home with. Looking left and right was so difficult; my eyesight was all over the place, due to the nerve damage, I carried an assortment of glasses, cotton wool patches, not knowing which one to use or to make things feel better. God, I was a mess. Lots of times, panic would set in and I could feel almost a shock sensation searing through my feet. I would have a ritual of playing some favourite CD’s in my car, knowing the words to lots of the songs; I knew that I could sing along to the tune and hopefully divert my mind off the driving and stall my feelings of panic. It was at this point that I also discovered how bad my singing voice had become since the SAH. It wasn’t perfect before, but it was now horrific! I’m not sure if any other drivers, ever noticed me singing my head off, but I must have looked like a complete nutter, especially when I was wearing the eye patch! My short term memory had also become very bad. I would walk from one room to another, forgetting the reason why I went in the first place. I had to start to make lists to help me remember. My brain seemed to be on meltdown and was reluctant to absorb any information. Sometimes, I found it hard to think of the correct word to use, when I was speaking, that was so frustrating. I would also forget a conversation very easily. One of my biggest fears after the SAH, was being by myself, in the Supermarket and experiencing a seizure. My body was so weak and shaky, that when I was asked to enter the PIN number of my debit card, I would have to steady my hand before entering the number. I used to think that I was starting to go into a seizure and would worry also about the fact that I could be incontinent in the middle of a shop. My anxiety attacks started to kick in at this point. About six months after the SAH, I was told that I could start to come off the anti-epilepsy drugs, as I hadn’t experienced any seizures since my coiling. The big risk of going ahead with this was the fact that if I did experience a seizure, I would lose my driving licence. I was in turmoil, as the drugs had given me all manner of side effects and I was sure that they were causing me more problems than good, but I didn’t want to lose my licence again. My anxiety became even worse when I started to slowly decrease the dosage of the AED’s. A week after the initial decrease, I felt physically and mentally ill. I was even more tired, more worried, that I might have a seizure. I was dizzy and shaky. I thought that I would feel better immediately, once I had started to decrease on the drug. This wasn’t to be the case and it took me just over 3 months to come off the drug completely and two weeks after that, to actually start to feel a little more human. I hated taking the AED’s. I think that these drugs helped to rob me of any little self confidence that I had left. My anxiety hit the roof and I started to experience panic attacks. I think that I was probably at one of my lowest points at this stage. I am very grateful to the SAH Support Nurses, Sarah Halcrow and Lesley Foulkes, who would take time out to listen to my ramblings either by e-mail or phone. Once I had left hospital, I had felt a little abandoned, I suppose. I didn’t know whether I was coming or going and my initial GP was lovely, but seemed to have less knowledge than I did. I also discovered that I should have been having blood tests for my AED levels but wasn’t being given them. I only realised that I should have been, once the Support Nurse had asked me what my AED level was, after experiencing problems. I didn’t have a clue what she was talking about at the time. She was amazed that in 3 months since my release from hospital, that I hadn’t been given a blood test. I decided to switch my GP and I’m glad to say that I’ve now got a brilliant one, who has restored my trust and I am very grateful to him. At this point, I started madly researching SAH, coiling, seizures on the internet. It seemed to be the only way for me to access the information that I was looking for. I read every article that I could, often regretting the outcome of what I read. May be ignorance is bliss sometimes, but I also felt that knowledge was power. I had already ended up in hospital due to lack of awareness, and I wasn’t going to let that happen again. After the initial feelings of being grateful, I also started to have feelings of anger, that if my SAH had been diagnosed properly earlier on, then I may not have experienced the nerve damage to my eyesight. These angry feelings did eat away at me for some weeks, but I knew that these thoughts were destructive and I had to put them to bed, which eventually I did. I have also found that my pre-menstrual tension is a lot worse since the SAH. My emotions seem to be more exaggerated or enhanced than they once used to be. My temper is quicker, but still fair; it’s just that I really don’t want to waste my life with stuff that doesn’t matter anymore. I get irritated when people make a mountain out of a mole hill or kick off about silly things. I also participated on a SAH Message Board website, linked to Southampton and Salford Hospital. I have found this to have been a Godsend. I really feel that you need to be able to talk to fellow sufferers and share experiences. When I have had down days, there’s always been somebody to share it with and vice-versa, there’s always somebody worse off, than you. July 2006 – I have just had my 12 month SAH Anniversary. Only now, has my life started to become more bearable. I am now having more good days than bad days and I feel more hopeful about the future. Earlier this year, I had one good day out of three months. I wrote it on the calendar, “Good Day!” as I felt so happy about it. Three months later, I hadn’t had any more “good days” and therefore decided that when they happened, I wouldn’t mark them down, as I felt as though I was tempting fate. That was an awfully bleak time for me and I often wondered why I had survived the SAH, as sometimes there was a sea of nothingness and I just felt despair and pain. Eric, Lauren and I, celebrated my anniversary at Lyme Regis. I still couldn’t walk very far, due to the eyesight and balance problems, but brought a fold up camping stool with me in case I needed a quick sit down! (I’ve now got used to people staring at me!!!) It was baking hot and pretty unbearable, but the whole day felt cathartic to me. I had plenty of time to reflect on the past year. It was a good day, I felt as though I was only now starting to make some significant recovery, both physically and mentally. Finally, my energy levels are returning and the word “fatigue” isn’t dominating my life anymore. The anxiety is still there. It’s a little better, but it’s still lurking away ready to jump up and bite me on the bum. The Doc has put me on Beta Blockers to help calm me down and to help with my migraines. I also suffered from an exaggerated startle reflex and I would jump out of my skin at the most ridiculous of things. Even though this reflex appears to have calmed down, I still suffer from it when I’m tired. There’s not a single day that goes past, where I don’t think about the SAH or my own mortality. However, now it doesn’t overtake my life. I used to liken it to an unwelcome guest that would keep popping “in and out” of my thoughts. I’ve teetered on the edge of depression and count myself lucky that I’ve been able to pick myself up. Not sure sometimes where I’ve found the strength, but somebody has been looking out for me. However, each time I’ve dipped in and out of depression, it’s been doubly harder to pick myself up again. I suffered a bout of depression just before my 12 month SAH anniversary and it was unbelievably hard to deal with. I thought that may be this was going to be the time where I wouldn’t be able to deal with it and I might need to seek some help. Luckily for me, the black cloud lifted and for that, I feel blessed. I have read that many people post SAH are put on anti depressants. I still can’t make plans. I suppose that having a near death experience changes you. I can’t really see the point any more with planning for the future, as I realise that I might not be here. To me, it’s a waste of time and energy and I would rather take each day as it comes. I suppose that I realise that I have little control over my life and would rather enjoy what I have today, rather than trying to map my life out for tomorrow. I used to think that I was an organised person and needed to know what I was doing in the next few weeks etc. Now, I seem to leave any organising until the very last minute and deal with stuff on a day to day basis. This probably does annoy my family, but my brain doesn’t seem to want to function in a different manner. Whether this will change with the passage of time or not, I really don’t know. My self confidence has definitely waned. I suppose it’s inevitable really, if you can’t get out and about. Your head is a mush. The little things that you used to do and took for granted suddenly become a huge mountain to climb. Unless, you have suffered a SAH yourself, nobody can understand this. Being frightened still hasn’t left me, I’m not frightened of dying, but frightened of the turmoil that I will leave behind I suppose. I still become frightened when I have strange pains in my head or the pressure builds up in my ears and I would be lying to say otherwise. However, I know that when I was taken ill, that past the point of intense pain, I felt extremely peaceful and if I had died at that point, I wouldn’t have known anything about it. With that knowledge, I can find some peace. I have recently discovered that my aneurysm hasn’t been totally occluded and that the coils have compacted. I’ve read many papers on coiling and therefore I know that it’s not an ideal situation. After my Angio check-up several months back, I was sent a letter telling me that the coiling was “satisfactory”. I was hoping to see the words “excellent” or “successful”, I didn’t want to see “satisfactory”. I suppose that I wanted to be reassured that I would never have to endure this again and that all would be okay and that I would live happily aver after. I felt frightened at first, but I now think that I’ve reached a point of at least partial acceptance. I have felt so much fear in the last 12 months, that at points I didn’t know whether I would be able to come through it. I have now decided to just get on with the life that I now have, it’s not perfect by any means, but it’s the only one that I have been given and I can’t change what’s happened. I haven’t got a clue what the future may hold for me and I’m not sure whether or not I would want to. I’m now at the point where I feel that I can start to re-build my life. I’m so very glad that I didn’t know that it would take me this long to reach this stage. I still don’t feel fit enough to think about looking for a job, but at least I feel more capable of functioning in the home and carrying out the day to day challenges. I’m heading in the right direction and feel so much more positive than I did a month ago.

My sister had a SAH on the 31st October 2005 and she finally came out of hospital on 23rd December 2006. When she first got poorly we were told that she had “little or no chance” of surviving. She was only 35 when she had it (with a 11 yr old daughter called Chelsey). She spent about 5 months of not being with it at all, but eventually she “came back” to us, and even now she is no where near the person she was but she is getting better. It is amazing what the brain can recover from and I pray that one day she will get back to the “Jacqui” she was. I love her deeply (of course) and she has all my family around her and even her boyfriend had stayed with her and is now looking after her at home full time, with a lot of help from the NHS and social services. It took her just over a year to start speaking again, but know she talks a little and most of the time her words come out right, but when they don’t she just laughs (which is good, as she knows she is getting it wrong and WILL improve on it). When I look back, to what we were told on the night it happened, she has come on so so so well, and all the bad times we had will hopefully one day be put to one side as we continue to watch her improve.

Hello Everyone, Everybody has a story to tell, don’t they. My “headache started last November. I got up as usual, even had the day off work. Had to move my car as we lived near a school and I was parked in the wrong place. It was a frosty morning as I remember. Came back in the house when suddenly it felt like my head was exploding. The pain was so intense, I had to hold it. I stupidly though it would pass. Took some paracetamols and had some brekkie. The pain eased a little. My partner and I were going to my daughters in Luton. By the time we drove there, the pain was coming back. Was sick, and couldn’t get rid of the pain. My daughter insisted we go to my doctors. He said I had gastric flu and was sent home. The pain went on day and night. I saw many doctors, even went to casualty where they said I didn’t tick the right boxes for an MRI scan. Eventually, the last doctor I saw, was amazed that I still had the “headache after ten days and got me into hospital. I was then transferred to the Royal Free Hospital in London where I spent the next two and a half weeks waiting for them to coil my aneurysm, beacause it had gone into spasm. I can’t believe how lucky I am to be here, and to see my eldest daugher Mandy get married in June this year. I went back to work part time in April this year and am now full time again, although I do still get very tired and am looking at going back to part time. I do worry what the future holds for me, like will it come back, but I try and stay positive. I am looking forward to my first granchild next year and this keeps me going. I want to see her/him grow up. Thanks for reading my story. I know alot of you out there are not as lucky as me. Keep well everyone. Will visit the site on a regular basis Maggie

For me my memory & tiredness are the two main factors my Optic nerve was damaged so I have a light sensitive, sound sensitive, crowd sensitive. The memory isn’t just forgetting things, its my actual memory, for example my cousin came home from Australia on the 4 July on the 22 September, he & his wife left to start their journey back home they don’t actually arrive home till 22 Oct, anyway we took lots of pictures which is my only way to remember it. I know that it happened, but where as people can picture something in their mind, a certain event or a face, I can’t, that was the hardest thing not being able to picture an event that has happened, or a place & most of all people, that I still find extremely hard. My memory also is short term, I have to write things down & do lists for most things, if you’re in a shop & see something for someone’s birthday & think must remember that, I have to write it down, the shop not just e.g.: jumper it’s the style colour price, where about I saw it in the shop, anything that will help me remember when I go back. Tiredness is a nightmare, I sometimes can be so tired I can’t get off to sleep, then I will wake up after a few hours sleep & find I sleep late in the morning. If I have a nap in the afternoon, this only makes sleeping in the night worse again. It’s taken me a long time to know this, on the other hand if I’m going to a night out, which doesn’t happen all that often now, but if I am, I have a nap in the afternoon and this helps recharge my batteries. I had to stop drinking as much coffee, I only have one cup a day now, first thing in the morning. I don’t drink de-caff as I don’t like the taste. I figured one cup was okay, I was told that coffee stimulates the brain. I find things sometimes have a strange taste now. I do drink water, but not all that much. I tend to drink Ribena, believe it or not I need the boost when I get tired. My husband can always tell, says it’s written on my face, I have some Ribena & you can see & admittedly I can feel the instant zing…. I went into hospital on the 1st November 1999 after being at work that day. I felt so cold, the cold that you can feel go right to your bones, I don’t remember getting home or telling my husband that I had pins & needles in my hands & feet, it could have been the cold, it wasn’t then I went ‘splat’ at his feet, he called the doctor it was just like I’d passed out he said, the doctor thought it was an ear infection, then I took a seizure, an ambulance was called & they had to do CPR on me in the ambulance, they then headed for the hospital that was taking emergencies that evening but on the way the medic in the back told the driver to go to Edinburgh’s Western General (thankfully) it has the best Neuro unit in the country. I have read all these stories of people waiting a long time to see a specialist I had one out his bed & in theatre within 7 hours of arriving at the hospital. I got a shunt clipped & sealed with platinum (so I now have scrap metal value) They thought I wouldn’t survive & if I did they didn’t know how bad I would be would I know anybody? Would I be able to talk? Feed myself? They said 80/20, thankfully I can do all that & I like to think I have taken 80% disabled & 20% able & turned it around & improved on it a little too. I know that it was tough on my husband Ronnie & my Dad, not knowing if I was going to survive or not & if I did what would lie in front of me/us. Ronnie told me that he would always ask other family members how they were doing, they themselves not the patients because they are the ones that need to be strong, they are the ones who have to keep it all together they know the reality of what’s happening the patient has no idea. And I have to say that is totally right I cringe at some of the things I said to my husband in those early days (as I call them) but honestly, that wasn’t really me, it was who I was then, I do cringe, I don’t apologise. We talk about it, its good to talk, remind ourselves what happened, in the beginning it helped me to talk about it. I don’t remember 5 weeks that I spent in hospital it made me part of it, mind you some of the things I have been told surprise me, they are out of character for me, but again it wasn’t really me. I have been asked wouldn’t I like to get hypnotherapy to remember those 5 weeks simple answer “NO” to remember what they did! To remember lumbar punctures! Bed baths! Scans CT/MRI! Pain! Injections! – would you? I had to go to a re-hab hospital where I learned to do things all over again, things you take for granted, getting dressed, brushing your teeth, tying your trainer laces, making a cup of coffee, most things were like riding a bike once you’re reminded it comes back to you, some things weren’t as easy so…. Then when I got discharged from the re-hab hospital a few weeks later & got a letter from work I was made redundant. 5 days later I was back in hospital with viral meningitis, the shunt then got a buddy, I got a tube in my brain which drains fluid from my brain, the brain produces too many vitamins, this is where the tiredness comes in, I never felt tiredness like this before. It has not been easy for every 6 steps forward there have been lots more back the way, there have been lots of downs but I have learned to enjoy the good days there came a point when there were more of the good days than the bad ones & I didn’t notice it happening it sort of crept up on me. Through the Re-hab hospital, they got me a place at college & I went to learn about computers. I did know a bit about them but not in the way I do now. It’s only been in the last 3 years that things have started to make better sense & at the beginning of this year, I made my friend a card, she’d just finished having chemo. We’d known one another for nearly 20 years at the time, it was a sort of story book she asked me to do a card for her Gran’s 90th Birthday, then something for the birth of her God-daughter, she & my husband have given me the confidence to keep going just that one step further with it, I would love to do something with this because it’s something that I really like doing, at the moment I am doing pictures for my other friends sons 21st in December, I find I am very (very) critical of myself something that I wasn’t before the Haemorrhage which really surprises me (a lot) I also have a great deal of determination now which I never processed before. It’s a constant struggle wondering if things will go back to how they were before, but you can’t let that get to you, you don’t know what tomorrow is going to bring. I owe a great deal to the surgeon & his team that saved me, with the help of my husband Ronnie, I have come this far. I have so much I owe them, my life for starters Ronnie for being here when I took ill & helping me through one of the darkest time’s of my life, he’s my rock.

This is the story of a SAH and what it meant to me, my wife, my children, my friends, my family, my work colleagues, passing acquaintances, complete strangers, and the people who work to help people in my situation. I guess I had better explain what an SAH is, Sub-Arachnoid Haemorrhage, that means an aneurysm burst in my brain. A brain haemorrhage, plain and simple, well as simple as a brain haemorrhage can be. That’s an attempt at humour by the way, well as you will find out over the rest of this the truism “You have to laugh, don’t you?” is really true. So back to my story, the early parts of this are unclear to me and I’m not sure that the memories I have of this time are real. You see memory can be a funny thing as, again, you’ll find out. My moods change with the wind, my temper is lethal, my mind isn’t my own and on good days I won’t bite your head off for saying “Hello”. Don’t ask me a silly question, as I am told I don’t suffer fools, not on purpose of course :. This is my story and the reason why I am like I am today. Thursday afternoon, I was moving my office to my house, so in the nature of my life I was trimming the honeysuckle back in my garden. My wife, Sarah (get used to this name as it plays the most important part in the story), was making dinner and the children (Sam aged 9 and Stephen aged 7) were playing around somewhere. I was going to take the children to town after dinner to give Sarah some time to herself, and spend some money on boys’ toys as well. Every one was happy, Sarah because I had been paid that day, the boys because that was the last day of school before half term, me because my business was going well and I was in demand both socially and at work. Then something in the world twisted, dizziness, pain, everything was wrong, I staggered into the kitchen from the garden, mumbled “Help me” to Sarah and then I collapsed on the floor. That’s it for what I can clearly remember for the next few months, I had had my SAH. From what people tell me the next few hours were hectic, Sarah thought I had been bitten by some insect or other, until I started fitting on the floor. My eldest saw me fit, my youngest was outside so missed that, thank God. Sarah called an ambulance at that time, and was told not to let me get up. I came around apparently and tried to stand, just as the ambulance turned up. The neighbours got involved here, and took the children, no one at that time realised how serious it was. My sister Stevie and her husband Nigel were called, and rushed to the local A&E, Basingstoke. The staffs at the hospital were very good and didn’t take offence at anything I said; apparently I was quite annoyed at this time and very rude. They gave me a CT scan and diagnosed correctly what was wrong with me. The next thing I vaguely remember is being transferred to Southampton. Southampton General Hospital, the Wessex very happy that they do. There are various “Neuro” units around the country and there they Neurological Centre, this was the first time in my life I knew these places existed, but I am do some wonderful stuff, really sci-fi, but I am getting ahead of myself. It was early hours of Friday morning when we set off, I remember the ambulance stopping so I could be sick, and them giving me an anti nausea shot and then nothing for a period of hours. Sarah was dealing stoically with this, her husband had had a serious brain insult, was lying almost unconscious and incoherent on a stretcher in this ambulance that was taking her to a place miles from her home and children (who were by now with Grandma and Granddad). Stevie and Nigel were following the ambulance, and panicked when it stopped suddenly by the side of the road. All this so I could be sick. Stevie and Sarah stayed in quarters in the Neuro centre that night and for a few nights to follow. They did receive their first briefing on what was found to be wrong with me. What would happen next! What were the chances for my survival? Sarah has always been reluctant to disclose exactly what was said in that meeting, and if you are reading this you probably have had that meeting of your own by now and know that the chances were that the patient will be OK but, that should be BUT, there are things that could go wrong. The next day I had a Cerebral Angiogram, a procedure where they thread a catheter up through your arteries to the brain, the catheter then releases a “contrast” showing the position of the aneurysm amongst the healthy network of blood vessels in your brain. I mention this, but I have no memory of it at all although I have vague memories of asking questions. Questions like “How serious is this?” the answers were the same every time I asked, and no matter who I asked “This is as serious as it gets”. The people that I asked the questions were an apparent never ending line of experts there was an Anaesthetist, a Neurological Surgeon, a Neurological Radiologist, Specialist Nurse, Ward Sister, Physio etc etc. etc. etc. This mean’s there was a long line of people who were apparently going to help me live through this. At this point I must mention the “Obs” the every half hour measuring of blood pressure, temperature, and the dreaded “Scott can you tell me who the Prime Minister is? What is the year Scott, Scott can you tell me where you are?” The “Obs” will stay with me forever; I still wake up and mumble “Southampton General Hospital” in the night. The consent forms I do remember, only because I didn’t want to bother with them, I wanted Sarah to sign them (an ominous omen for the future), but they wouldn’t let her and she wanted me to sign them. That was Friday, Saturday I was to have an “embolisation” and small platinum coils were going to be put into my aneurysm to fill it up and stop the bleeding into my brain. This we were informed was a “less risky procedure” than the traditional “Clipping” which would of involved a brain flap and opening the brain to allow a surgical clip on the aneurysm. The procedure would be done under an “Angiogram” to allow the team to see where they were and how full of coils the aneurysm was. I went down at nine in the morning, and the procedure was done by mid afternoon, however I did not go to “HDU” (High Dependency Unit) until early evening. Sarah was left alone during this time as my sister had to go to work on Saturdays and so until the early evening she had to twiddle her thumbs. They eventually saw a doctor that night that told them that the operation had gone well, they would need to check in six months, but I was out of immediate danger. However I had a “minor stroke” during the “Angiogram”, this we did not find out until our first out patient appointment some four months later. BUT the effects were there, a weakness down one side and for a few days I was unable to freely move my right side, in fact those “effects” are still with me today in that my hip is painful and restricts my movement. According to Sarah’s diary the next few days went well, I was kept asleep and my blood pressure was kept high again I don’t remember any of this. On the Wednesday I needed some Physio to clear my chest, and was on a nebuliser. I had a chest X-Ray, which they brought to my bed!! I had a chest infection and was given antibiotics; again I have no memory of this, or of the visitors that were appearing at my bedside. Over the next couple of days I gradually improved, and the space age monitors next to my bed provided Sarah and Stevie with hours of fun, the nurses in HDU wear a dark blue jump suit and sadly to say I can’t remember the excellent care I was receiving. The careful watching of my screens proved to be worthwhile because Stevie noticed a strange pattern on my ECG that was put down to “brain injury”. Nine days after the OP and eleven days PSAH (post SAH) I had my central line taken out and more ultra sounds taken of my head, and I actually managed to eat the first semi-solid food since the SAH, jelly and ice cream! The next day I had CT scan on both my head and chest, which were both, OK so I made the move out of HDU and onto “C Neuro”. The move onto “C Neuro” was immediate, and without warning straight from the CT scans, this upset Sarah and was the first time she shed tears, I on the other had was oblivious to the trouble I was causing and even had the nerve to ask “Where were you? I’ve been here ages!” This is the stage where I believe I had the hallucinations, although they could have been at any time since the OP, and boy were they weird. This is where I have my first PSAH memory, one of the nurses on the ward used to order in takeaways on the night shift, and he asked if I wanted anything. I don’t remember what, if anything. A refrain of use from memory becoming more and more familiar. My memory once excellent is very shaky, some things I remember clear as a bell, other things might as well of not happened as far as I was/am concerned. I had a week on the ward, a week where I went from not being able to even sit up to being able to walk twenty plus paces on a couple of very shaky legs. I do remember my second visit from my sons, and the look of pure joy on Sam’s face as I winked at him when he walked past my curtains. Also the hospital food was excellent, even to the point where my visitors would arrive not to see me, but to have dinner in the canteen! I slept constantly, in short stretches, but you could be sure that if you found me awake you wouldn’t have to wait long before I left for the land of nod. This apparently is quite normal, the brain is trying to repair itself during sleep, and the damage that had been done during the bleed and OP (not to mention the stroke) was substantial. The main feeling I had was one of detachment from absolutely everything, from whether I went home or stayed in for the next few weeks. That choice was not mine to make, but with both my Consultant and Specialist Nurse on holiday when it was made I guess the pressure for bed space overrode what was best for both me and Sarah. I don’t mean to sound that I disagreed violently with when I went home, because I was in no fit state to even argue that the sky wasn’t green, but Sarah felt that we were kicked out with no support at all. That might sound harsh, but consider this, I had had a life changing event that left me weak, muddle minded, unable to climb more than one flight of stairs, and had only been “conscious” for just under a week. Sarah has had no medical experience at all, all the contact nursing that I had received in the last three weeks was totally alien to her, and to expect her to carry that on was unfair. Home, the journey from Southampton to Basingstoke was strange, the car we took that journey in was strange. I had left Sarah with two cars when I collapsed, one not working and one that she didn’t like to drive, so she had brought a new one. No big shakes you might think, but I just couldn’t get used to the new car on that journey, a fore taste of what was to come in the following days, weeks, and months. Apparently England played a match that I watched when we got home, Sarah said it was “weird” watching football with me not shouting at the TV, you see football was a major part of my life BSAH (Before SAH). I couldn’t physically walk up the stairs to bed, so we both slept downstairs (the boys were still at grandma’s). I couldn’t wash myself, and I like to shower every morning, the problem was I couldn’t get into the shower, so again Sarah had to help with that. The next few days both of us have few good memories of what happened, from Sarah feeling helpless to me not feeling anything at all, to being sofa ridden. If the boys hadn’t come home that weekend we would probably of gone mad with frustration, that life had come to a complete halt. Again all I did was sleep, and then for good measure I slept again, the whole home life had changed forever. The next week passed in a blur of headaches, dizziness, semi-collapses, and rekindled love for each other. Its fair to say that BSAH we led semi separate lives, Sarah had her work at the Pre-School she manages, she was/is a Beaver Scout leader, she worked at the time running the After-School club, all these things are committee run which means lots of meetings in the evenings. I was treasurer of the local Royal British Legion branch, Membership Secretary of the same, on the committee of the local football club, worked on the bar at the Legion, and on top of all that was Technical Director and co-owner of my own business. I’ll give you an idea of what our calendars looked like…. Scott- work and take kids to school Mon-Fri, meetings Tue, Weds evening, watching Stephen play football on Fri evening, working behind bar at legion after that, Sat football in afternoon and bar work in evening, Sun helping at football club car-boot. Sarah work Mon-Fri mornings at pre-school, picking kids up, going to work at after-school club until 6.30pm, meetings on Mon and Thur, watching Stephen at football and taking Sam to Karate on Fri. Weekends she did the paper work that the two jobs stacked up during the week. So you can see that with all the other “normal” stuff added in, we were never in the house. So where was I? Another thing that you should know is that as I am writing this I have to keep going back and looking at what I’ve already written, so sometimes it may not scan quite right, sorry. OK back to the story. Sarah and I were spending more time with each other than we have ever done in the past (Sarah had taken a leave of absence from all the activities) and we were almost glad that we had done so. Our GP came to see us on the second Friday after I was home, he expressed regret at what had happened, but he didn’t know a great deal about the recovery process for SAH, but he would read up on it. He then made a general statement about “getting out”, I think he meant to the end of the path and back, but I took it to mean into the car and getting OUT. Sarah says that when I get an idea into my head now I won’t let it go, even when I say I have I really am thinking about how to get the idea into reality. She also says that I am a lot better than during this period, during this period if I wanted something it had to be NOW. So when the doctor told me to get out, I took him at his word, and took my first trip into town. Scary, very scary the people around me made me nervous and out me on edge, and I don’t know why. The large crowds seemed to buffet me at every opportunity, seeming to pick me out, for bumping into shop doorways became a “hostile” environment. I was walking very slowly, having to make sure of each and every step relying on Sarah to help me through the crowds, after five minutes I had to get out and go home. I was angry, why couldn’t I walk through town? Why couldn’t I even go into a shop? Why did people insist on pushing at me? Now I can look back and say that I was walking too slowly to be able to blend into a crowd, and there was nothing to show that I couldn’t rush and wasn’t capable of dealing with a crowd, there was no bandage on my head, there was no physical label on me saying “Take Care Stroke Victim”. But at the time it upset us that people could be so cruel, tutting and saying “come on” when I was in front of them in a doorway, or even just pushing past. The whole experience has left us both more tolerant than before, more willing to take a few seconds or minutes to allow someone else to finish first. Car journeys were also very difficult, I took five minutes or more to get in or out of the car, the amount of room I needed was huge, which brings me on to FORMS. Any victim of SAH will be aware of the forms that need filling out, the DVLA, insurance, state benefits, DLA, incapacity, the list seems to go on for ever. I was not capable of either filling out a form or talking to anyone on the phone, something the authorities seemed unable to grasp. We had to fill out forms to allow Sarah to act on my behalf, and then she spent extra hours on the phone whilst they verified this EVERY SINGLE TIME. My situation was complex because of my own business, but this could and should be made easier for people. If you are reading this and are still in hospital, get the welfare office to come and see you. Back to my recovery, I was now able to walk upstairs and so we both went to bed for the first time in five weeks. Our house has no upstairs toilet, so I had to use a bucket; we could and should have been given bottles. Right I don’t want you to think that we were miserable and downbeat, most of the time we were happy, only occasionally did we succumb to being down. But at the time it seemed to be one thing after another, the DSS wanted to come and do a home visit, that was fine, the insurance wanted to come and see me, the bank wanted to see me, again fine but surely they could of just asked my doctor? Then came the ITCHES, my god they were hell, my back felt like there were insects under my skin. This is not an uncommon phenomenon, but there are many different ways to treat it, all useful for someone, but not for me, nothing could alleviate the terrible itching. The attacks came and lasted anything up to two hours and this was the one thing I cried about, agony. But apparently they are not that bad for everyone. My doctor was true to his word and read about what I was likely to need, and came and saw me without prompting. The summer holidays came and went without much impact on my memory. This was the hottest year on record, and I would get up and put jumpers on. My internal temperature gauge was on the blink, I could not feel either heat or cold, nor did I sweat. This could have had something to do with the fact that I was still not able to do much physically. The boys were resilient, and seemed to take it in their stride that daddy was not able to play with them, in fact Stephen took quite some pride in telling his friends that his daddy was “brain damaged”. Sam on the other hand is the quiet introspective one, so he needed a bit more reassurance that I was OK. Sarah was convinced from the hours after the OP that I was OK, and was going to be alive well into the future. I on the other hand was convinced that I was going to die, I wasn’t overly morbid just aware of my own mortality. Every dizzy spell that came, and there were a few, was in my mind another SAH. At this stage I had no memories of anything that the doctors in Southampton had told me, our lifeline was Lesley, our specialist SAH nurse. We called her often to seek answers and reassurance; she never made us feel that we were a burden or that our questions were silly. As the summer holidays drew to a close Sarah had to decide whether to give up work full time, and stay with me, or to return to her busy schedule. She choose to go back to the playschool (her first love) and give up the after school club, this meant that she would be leaving me alone from 8.30am until 12.30pm, four hours! The longest I had been left before now was � an hour whilst Sarah took the boys to school or collected them. Also we got the date through for my first out patient’s appointment in a couple of months. At about this time into my life came two new people, Mary my OT and Helen my Physio, they where to make a major change in my life. I am lucky to have had the support from my local health authority; many people have had no such support from theirs. My first attempts at Physio were attempting common household tasks, like making a drink, sounds silly now doesn’t it? Mary was there to explain all of the really silly things that had been bothering us from why we had no visitors (people are scared of confronting what they perceive as being “BRAIN DAMAGE”) to why I was unable to even ask for a chocolate bar in our local shop (that’s slightly more in depth). Mary was our bridge back to a semi normal life. You see I had been left at three months PSAH with a distinct right-sided weakness (Helen’s job) and with all sorts of “mental health problems” (Mary’s job). Those things that you take for granted like being able to indulge in small talk with friends and family, I couldn’t do there was a block there. All the way down to flinching when someone walked past my right hand side, there was and still is a multitude of things I can’t do. For one thing I couldn’t sit down and tell you this story, way too many things to all drag together at one time, but I can now sit and type this over a period of a few days and weeks. There is a stigma attached to mental health, probably I have shied away from people that didn’t interact with me in a “normal” manner, but the stigma from the other side is not funny, especially when you perceive yourself to be “normal”. Whilst my friends and family (apart from Stevie and Nigel) did shy away from me, they at the same time wanted reassurance about my state of health. “Is he OK now?” they would ask Sarah in my presence, “When does he go back to work”. We used to try and sugar coat the truth, more for my benefit than theirs, with “Oh he’s on the mend” and “In the new year”, all completely half truths. I used to pick up the boys from school, BSAH that is, and used to talk to people around up at the school, now when we went to the school it seemed that there was an exclusion zone around me and who ever was stood next to me. I used to watch people approach people that Sarah had been talking to and look over in my direction. All they had to do was ask, we would of given them a complete history, or if that was too much we could of given them the “80% of the way there” bullshit. I can’t remember specific days when Sarah went back to work, however our neighbour Anne used to come over and support me. Anne’s son Alex was involved in a serious car accident when he was a teenager, and he was left with serious head injuries, so she could understand probably better than we could what we were going through. However it was about this time that I had another collapse, and spent the night in Basingstoke hospital, it was put down to “unknown causes” and I was released the next day. I know now that they were reticent about labelling it a “FIT” because if they had done so I would have been allowed only one more “FIT” in the next year before I was labelled epileptic, and I really didn’t need another label and all that went with it. You see you are allowed one “FIT” within twenty four hours of an SAH, and then if you have two more within a year of each other then you get diagnosed as epileptic, and are not allowed to drive until you have gone for yet another year “FIT” free. I was due to get my license back in November, but to be honest I really wasn’t on any state to drive. So I can vaguely remember calling Sarah about every little thing, and we were now into a habit of going out as soon as she came home. We had Christmas all done and wrapped before the end of September. My condition apparently worsened over the next month or so, to the point where I was severely photophobic, light hurt my eyes, my headaches had got progressively worse and my memory had got to the point where I couldn’t remember a conversation from a couple of hours before. All good fun for Sarah, “Well you said you want it!”, “No I didn’t”, “Yes Scott I told you I would be five minutes late today” etc, etc. My GP re-referred me to Southampton in an effort to bring my appointment forward, and indeed the time soon came for me to re-attend Southampton. It was strange knowing that I would soon be in the Hospital where I had been for three weeks, and that in a very real way it would be for the first time. The journey had to be planned to allow me several breaks (my bladder was very weak) and when we got there I felt no feeling of deja vu, or even a slight flicker of remembrance. The sliding doors opened up to allow us in, and some things came back to me, nebulous and not willing to come into focus but still there. The visit was brief, and I would be back, I was progressing along ok, BUT I would need a CT scan to clear some things up. This is when we found out for the “first” time that I had had a stroke on the table, so the right-sided weakness became clear. That made me so happy, to have had an answer in a field where there were no clear answers. We made the journey home extremely happy, never before has someone been so happy to be told that they had had a stroke. However, on the way home the lights were a pain, but this was seemingly less important, after all I had lived through a stroke!! My CT scan appointment came through in about a month, and again I have no clear memories of this period of time. The time came again to arrange for a trip to Southampton, so off we set down to the CT suite. I was recognised by one of the nurses, Sarah, although I thought I knew her I couldn’t be sure. My Sarah on the other hand chatted away to her like an old friend, this relaxed me prior to my scan. To me this was my first CT scan, although in truth I had been through the procedure many times, it wasn’t anything like what I had imagined and seemed rather a let down. We went and had something to eat and then went onto “C Neuro”, YES I did remember where my bed was, a breakthrough!!! We left the ward on a high and bumped into my consultant (Mr. Duffield) and Lesley on the way out. News indeed, he had looked at the results of my CT scan and it indicated Hydrocephalus, and I would have to come in for more tests almost immediately. It was Friday and he would like me in on Monday, that quick and sudden that I didn’t have time to worry, Sarah has never told me how she felt at that moment. As an aside Eastender’s on the BBC was running a storyline that involved Hydrocephalus, and “Nana Moon” well she was due in next week so we would see wouldn’t we. Monday came and went, we were on edge about the boys and the arrangements for them with their Grandma, they hadn’t missed a day of school through out all of this and that was not about to change. We decide to research Hydrocephalus on the web, not always the best idea as with SAH it had some real scare stories on there, we found a site that helped though. ASBAH I won’t put down what it stands for here, but try them if you are going to get or have a shunt for Hydrocephalus, they have children’s books that explain in very simple terms what is going to happen “Benny Gets a Shunt” explained to my children exactly what was going to happen. Even though I am ahead of my story, in that part, I eventually went in on the Wednesday, and went onto “E Neuro” only one more (D Neuro) and I would have the full set! I was to have a Lumbar Puncture (LP) to try and find out what the pressure was on my brain and if the fluid was draining away. I eventually had it done on Friday afternoon, whilst I wouldn’t call it an enjoyable experience it wasn’t that bad. The LP couldn’t be finished because I developed pins and needles in my legs, but there was no doubting the results that they had gleaned from the procedure, I had Hydrocephalus. On a more positive note I was allowed home for the weekend. The date was set for my shunt operation, next week, and I would be in for approx one week. You would think that I would be terrified by the thought of brain surgery, but I was too muddled to even be scared properly. Again I was seen by a succession of people explaining what was going to happen, this time Sarah had insisted on being present during every consultation. How was I to remember anything that I had been told? So she was there when I went down, although I don’t remember it myself. When I came around on the way back up to the ward I felt instantly better, more able to think, less jumbled, less cotton wool in my mind, an instant result. I wanted to be up and about immediately, but I had to wait for a few hours before they would let me up, I watched the hands of the clock tick around to the appointed time, and I was up and away (and on D Neuro as well!). Sarah has never looked happier, and I think my joy was a bit too much for what was supposed to be a quiet surgical ward. I was rewarded with a private room away from the people who needed quiet and rest. So having had the operation on the Thursday I was up and around the hospital on the Friday, revisiting the wards I had previously been on trying to jog my memory, no luck. That evening as I sat at dinner with Stevie, Nigel, and my great nephew Jack I turned at looked at Sarah and it all sank it, how lucky I was to be alive. I tried to hold back the tears, but later when I was on my own in my room I wept like a baby with the sheer relief of being alive. The next morning Sarah was going to bring the boys in with her to see me, they wanted a burger from Burger King, but they had a sale on at their school first. So I got the morning papers and sat down on my bed to read them, the wards are very quiet on the weekends, when a doctor I hadn’t seen before came in. He gave me a quick look over, all the doctors seemed to be fascinated by my right-sided weakness, when he said, “I guess you can go home now.” and walked out of the room. I was in shock, this wasn’t the way it was supposed to be, and I was supposed to be in hospital slowly going out of my mind! I made sure it was true and checked with the nurses; they confirmed that I could go home when I wanted, so I called Sarah. Now when you’ve had brain surgery on the Thursday you’re not supposed to go shopping on the Saturday, well I did. I went to shop-mobility to get a scooter and off around town we went. I should explain; I had a shaven head, a large dressing on the side of my head, and was keen to see how people would react now, it worked a charm. People couldn’t get out of my way quick enough, the sudden appearance of quite obvious brain surgery made quite a difference. I guess I was over reacting to something that had built up inside of me, that I was resentful of the people around me and wanted them to know that I WAS ILL. We had carried on since mid September taking Stephen to football on a Friday night and Sunday morning. The reaction from people that I had classed as slight acquaintances, they knew that I had been very ill but didn’t know quite what had happened, was heart warming. Sarah told a few people what had happened to us, and they made me feel that I was brave, a feeling I hadn’t thought I was capable of. The obvious sign of what had happened made a lot more people stop and think before they spoke, I wasn’t asked when I was going back to work whilst I had the dressing on. I was strangely sad when the doctor took the dressing off. I was now left with a small horseshoe shaped scar on my head, and a two inch one below my chest. I had been very focused on Christmas, wanting everything to be perfect, and now it was here, and it was. I felt extremely relieved to be even alive and was for the first time since I was a small child, truly joyous on Christmas day itself. But the problem was that what was I to focus on now? Although my memories are dim, Sarah and Mary (my OT) tell me that I suffered a dip in my recovery. In mid January my appointment for my check Angiogram arrived for February and this worried me. I had endured at least two Angiograms, before; the problem was I didn’t remember them. The leaflet that I had about the procedure had dire warnings about the risks, the research I had done on the web involved many horror stories about the possible outcomes. My belief is that you should avoid the web when it comes to any medical procedures that you may be about to undergo, the web is great, but the lurid side of everything tends to catch your eye. I was terrified for weeks; I probably caused allsorts of problems for Sarah with my mood swings. We packed the children off to school, I gave them a little extra hug, and off we went one cold crisp morning for my pre-op checks down in Southampton. The Angiogram suite had been closed for refurbishment, which was why my six month Angiogram was in effect a nine month check, and we were assured that the equipment was ultra modern and safe. My reaction to the news that the equipment was brand new was entirely negative “My God I’m a guinea pig” was my first thought. The following week I was a bag of nerves before the dreaded Tuesday came, but like death and taxes medical appointments wait for no man. The staffs as normal in Southampton were great, the other patients in the day ward were as nervous as me, well if possible one lady was even more nervous. She was shaking like a leaf in a force ten gale, somehow this made me feel worse. She went down first, leaving me to twiddle my thumbs for a couple of hours. On the ward there were people having allsorts done, a man was in for a Lumbar Puncture; I did my best to reassure those that I could. Eventually my turn came, I passed the nervous lady on the way down, she was at least still alive, and I arrived in the Angiogram suite a nervous wreck. The staff did their best to put me at ease, the equipment was shiny and new, and the room was COLD, they taped off my groin and began. All I can say is that I don’t know why I was so worried, even the local jab they gave me didn’t hurt, the whole thing passed off with out a hitch. Although I was a little bit worried when they didn’t give me a sedative, after all, the leaflet did say I would have a sedative, and I wanted one. The reason they calmly explained was so that I could go home today, I didn’t care about that, and I still wanted one. After about an hour of lying there, not as still as the leaflet said, I was told that was it, twenty minutes of pressure on the arterial incision and I could go back up. Whilst the pressure was applied I spoke to the technicians, they showed me the superb pictures that they had taken of my brain, 3D pictures that they rotated and moved through all plains, real sci-fi stuff. I was over the moon and full of confidence when I got back to the ward, Sarah could sense the change even before I was wheeled back to her side. The next few hours are probably amongst the clearest memories I have; I was treated to tea and toast, whilst still prone on my back. We all talked about the procedure, the nervous lady was still nervous even though it was all over, the Lumbar puncture man seemed more at ease, even the nurses joined in the conversations. Eventually I was allowed to sit up, and thanks to the fact that Sarah had brought my medication, my blood pressure was low enough to allow me to go home. We bade the nervous lady and the nurses a fond farewell and got out as quick as we could. Later that night my stomach rose in a quilted rash, not painful but a huge white puffy rash all the same. We phoned Southampton and they recommended a trip to our local A&E and to get them to phone Southampton as soon as we got there. Sad to say our local A&E totally ignored that, they refused to call and we had to get Southampton to call them, I didn’t even get to see a doctor, all they gave me was anti-histamine cream and the prospect of a five hour wait to see a doctor. At the end of that day we had seen the NHS at its best and worse, I had woken up to a day when I feared the worse and gone to sleep in the knowledge that I was now allergic to non-allergic surgical tape. The rest of the story is positive, I still have memory problems, hip mobility problems, and still get very dizzy BUT the SAH didn’t kill me. My family life has never been better, the debts will take some clearing, but we manage and are still able to occasionally treat the kids. My consultant hasn’t signed me off from under his care yet, but he did say at my next outpatients he didn’t need to see me for nine months. The support group that I go to on the first Thursday of every month helps, you get to speak to people who have gone through the same as you, and to reassure people that a SAH is not the end of the world. My first year PSAH was one that had many events that I would rather not of experienced, but many that I would never of seen if I hadn’t had it. That’s not to say I wouldn’t change history and not have a SAH, I would, but I don’t regret it as much as people think.

After the diagnosis came the shock - and it was a serious shock. Sarah wasn’t dead but could still die over the few days pre-operation, during the operation or, it seemed, even post operation. The internet provided many answers including all the unfortunate outcomes post surgery…. disability, speech impediments, memory loss, fits, and they were just some of the more “pleasant” ones. We faced many hours and days as a family with our emotions all over the place and, whilst I’m sure we visited certain questions individually, I know we didn’t face them together. What would happen to Sarah if the worst did happen and she lived to be little more than a nodding body? And could I cope with that? God it was a horrible time and I really feel for those whose lives have been so altered by the necessity to care for a loved one who can’t even pee on their own. I’m a pretty realistic sorta gal and began to make copious plans in my head for dealing with all the possible outcomes…. Some weeks later I breathed again, it was like I’d been holding my breath for all that time only daring to gasp for air when Sarahs survival rate had hit an acceptable level. She had made it through some of the worst times and was home. Stupidly I thought she would get better quickly given my amazing nursing abilities, I mean she was at home, being fed well, I was about all the time… But not so, she was shattered and slept like a new born awaking only to check what had happened when and where. The kids came over as did Penny, her sister, a trained nurse. We coped together for a couple of weeks and then bang… everyone left to resume their lives… Now I know that in a perfect world that would not have happened, but it did. In some ways it was easier to cope, less meals were needed, less shopping and there were fewer heart to hearts. I didn’t want to talk anymore, I just wanted it to be normal again….. Over the next few weeks we got on with it all - I missed Sarah and the way we were, our chats, jokes, our ways. I began to seriously doubt why it had to happen to us and what was I supposed to make of it all. I lost faith, took off my cross and rang the Doctor. 3 months and 2 weeks later things have inproved. Sarah had a bad day today and spent it in bed. I was lonely, lethargic and lost - yes I did say improved, because over the last few months I had been very lonely, increasingly lethargic and so lost without her that I cried every night. Still, people said it would be tough on the carer(s) and they weren’t wrong. I had coped fine for a while and then whoosh - massive wave time and gurgle gurgle gone. I haven’t had the support from my family that would have been a great comfort and that hurts, but through it all I now realise what and who is important. If your are a carer, take care of yourself - you will be called upon to do everything and will need courage, strength and the patience of a saint. Never give up hope and don’t bother looking for a reason for all of it - there aren’t any. I hope your “patient” recovers well and your lives together rejoin the path of happiness soon. Sarah is coming on a treat - we are sooo lucky. If care is another word for love, then I hope I have loved well…