6 months ago my Dad had a SAH. He was mountain biking with my brother & had a sudden extreme headache come on. He stopped & said this is a bizarre feeling I think we should get someone to pick us up & take us home. So as they walked there bikes back to the road Dad symptoms got worse & he said he wanted an ambulance. They managed to get to the road & by that stage his face was numb & he wasn't good at all. He had to be transferred to a hospital with a Neuro ward, which was a 1 & ½ hours away, by the time he left in the ambulance he was unconscious. He was put on life support & spent about 2 weeks in ICU & HDU & then was transferred into the HDU Neuro ward.
Dads SAH was a grade 4 out of 5 & we were told he wouldn’t make it or if he did he wouldn’t be the same person. We are so lucky & thankful he pulled through, he is such a fighter!!
Dad was at home after 3 months. He has short-term memory loss but that is improving every day. The biggest hurdle for him at the moment is his emotions & feeling down. He cries a lot & the smallest things trigger him off. It took us a while to realise that we see his amazing improvements & feel so happy that he is doing so well but inside he is feeling very scrambled & doesn’t feel himself at all. He says he knows he should feel thankful to be alive but he just doesn’t feel that way as he isn’t himself. I have tried to get him to look at this website as I thought it would be very helpful (as it has been extremely helpful to me after I found it a month ago) but anything medical at the moment just brings him to tears & he said he doesn’t feel ready at the moment. I am hoping in a couple of months he will feel ready to have a look as I think he wont feel so alone. He has a lot of family & friends support. Mum has been amazing, it has made me realise how tough it can be on the carers as well as their life has changed so much as well. I know we still have a long recovery rollercoaster ahead of us but I have no doubt he will get to a point where he enjoys life again..
The strange thing about Dads case is that he has had about 5 MRI & many Cat scans & they still can’t find where the bleed occurred so they haven’t been able to coil it. They don’t think it was a venous bleed as the bleed was so bad. Has this happened to anybody on here? It made it very hard as every scan we were hoping they would find something so they could fix it but unfortunately they haven’t had any luck. He has 1 more MRI in a few months to see if they can see it…so fingers crossed!
I am so happy to have found this site as it has helped me understand what he is going through a lot more...so thank you!
Kate
