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modbod

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  • Location
    Dublin, Ireland
  • Interests
    Golf, music, computer
  • Occupation
    Retired accountant
  1. Thank you all for your kind words and good wishes. It is good to know that you are all still out there and ready to offer support and friendship when the going gets tough. Best wishes to all of you for a happy and successful 2009. Regards, Michael
  2. Hi all, I have not been on the website for a good while (since June 2008) so I thought I'd just say hello. I was supposed to have a cerebral angiogram after 6 months but it was about a year before I was called, in December 2008. Anyway it turned out I was clear, so that is good news and I do not have to go back for another angio in the future. Just when I was getting back to normal with the SAH I was diagnosed with prostate cancer last September and my prostate has now been fully removed after two stays in hospital. The various scans and biopsies suggest that all of the cancer was removed during surgery and that the prognosis is "excellent", but it also seems there is a 20% to 25% risk of recurrence. I know some guys who have had similar experiences and who are still clear many years later so I'm hoping for the best. The side-effects of this include sterility/impotence and incontinence---at age 60 the former is not that important to me and the latter is improving gradually although the nappies will continue for a while yet. Since September 2007 I've been in hospital seven times, mainly for the SAH and the cancer but also for a few other minor things--my hospital bills exceed Eur40k but thankfully VHI, the insurer, is paying for this. Hopefully 2009 will be a better year and my wife and I hope to celebrate our 25th wedding anniversary in April 2009. I know I have been a bit of a pain for her of late but thanfully she is still living with me. Thanks for listening, Regards, Michael
  3. Cousin Peter sadly passed away yesterday. May he rest in peace. Thank you all again for your kind words and prayers. Regards,
  4. Thank you all for your kind words and prayers. Keith, I enjoyed listening to Daniel's music and to your's and looking at your photos of Devon on your website. Devon seems like a lovely part of the world. I have dabbled a bit in recording as well over a year ago and attach below a link to one mp3 track; http://www.4shared.com/file/24279385/df ... meMP3.html If you can't access it don't worry as it is pretty bad anyway. Regards,
  5. Hello All, It is about 3 months since I last posted so I thought I'd jot down a few items that have happened in the meantime. In February last I saw the consultant neurosurgeon and got the all-clear to drive again. In March, I saw another consultant about the pain in my colon, which led to a colonoscopy and the removal of 3 polyps. These were benign, thank God, but they discovered I had picked up the MRSA bug while being treated for the SAH in hospital in November last. After some vigorous treatment, I think this has now gone(?). My angiogram was due this month but due to waiting list it will be next August I'm told before this will happen. I'm back playing some golf once a week, 9 holes at a time. I'm also back playing the keyboard with the Church music group but am finding this a bit of a struggle. I also, in several moments of weakness (a) volunteered to regularly cut grass in a public green area nearby which nobody else was cutting, ( volunteered to write a 10,000 word research paper on a technical tax topic (have done about 4,500 words so far) and © volunteered to play the keyboard each week in a nearby nursing home for elderly folk . So much for taking it easy, I must be nuts! Anyway, enough about me. The really sad news is that a cousin of mine, in his early 50's, had a brain haemorrhage a couple of weeks ago and while he has recovered consciousness, appears to be very severely damaged and, last I heard, he is not expected to survive. Please say a prayer for him and his family Regards,
  6. Thanks for welcome Aine. I love your bit of Irish? Is it Scottish gaelic or Irish Irish? I am originally from Clare so Munster Irish would be my thing, although I have lived in Dublin for well over 40 years now. We go down to Clare a good bit for R&R as we have a small holiday home there. Our first trip down post-SAH was around end of Nov 07 and was a bit too soon, I could not get comfortable in the car no matter what way I sat or lied down, even tho Bernie was driving. We have been down once since then and the journey was a lot more comfortable. I saw some comments elsewhere re Nimodopine tabs(spelling?) and I think I read somewhere that they are anti-stroke tabs. Excuse this non-sequitur. Regards and "Tog go bog e" yourself
  7. Thank you all again for the warm welcome to the site. I contacted the Motor Tax/Driving Licence section of Dublin City Council yesterday and explained that I had had a SAH 3 months ago and that I had now received a certificate of fitness to drive from my neurosurgeon. In those circumstances they said I did not have to do anything further and that I could drive as far as they were concerned. It was not too clear whether I should have reported the SAH at the beginning and filled up a form and then supplied them with the cert of fitness to drive at the end of the 3 months---I got some conflicting views on this from 2 seperate officials to whom I spoke. In fact I got the impression that they were not too clear themselves. The overall conclusion is that it is essential to advise your insurance company of the SAH and, while it does not seem to be essential to advise the Motor Tax/Licencing Authority, unless you are actually applying for a licence at the time, it may be advisable to do so. It appears that the certificate of fitness to drive from the neurosurgeon should satisfy both the insurer and the Licencing Authority and enable you to start driving again. Best Regards,
  8. Karen, that is good advice and I think I will contact the Irish equivalent of the DVCL tomorrow, just to be on the safe side. Best Regards,
  9. Thank you all so much for making me feel so welcome to the site. Shanti, in regard to your questions about driving, I was advised by the neurosurgeon to alert my insurance company of the SAH which I did shortly after my release from hospital. After three months, my neurosurgeon gave me a certificate of fitness to drive which I passed on to my insurer and they gave me go-ahead to drive again last week. I did not contact the licencing authority (the Government Dept which issues driving licences and tax discs) and I am working on the assumption that I do not have to contact them, mainly because nobody told me I had to contact them. Perhaps the situation is different in the UK? Best Regards
  10. Hello, I'm Michael, a new member from Dublin, Ireland and I've found this site very useful and helpful. I am now 3 months after a SAH and have made a good recovery, thank God. I would like to set out my story below as it is therapeutic for me to do so and to avoid boring readers too much, I will try to be brief. I am a 59 year old retired accountant. The SAH happened, without warning, at 7am on 2 November 2007. I was in bed and my wife had already left the house but was due to return in about half an hour. I lifted my head from the pillow and bang, it hit me. I felt a very severe pain in my head. With hindsight, I also remember a warm wet sensation in my head, but at the time I didn't know what was happening. I remember getting up to the bathroom and vomiting a few times and putting my hands to the sides of my head and asking myself if this was how I was going to die. The most scary bit was a very unpleasant sensation spreading from the back, across the entire area of my head and the overwhelming feeling that I only had a short time before I became unconscious. I wondered if I'd have enough time to ring for an ambulance and haul myself downstairs to open the front door, to allow access for the ambulance guys, before I passed out. I picked up the nearest phone and rang 999 and asked for an ambulance. During the phone call, my condition stabilised and the feeling of immininent unconsciousness left me. I remember thinking that I did not particularly want to wake up the neighbours with the ambulance's siren and flashing lights. So I agreed with the chap on the phone that I would wait till my wife returned in 15 minutes and, if necessary I would then ring back. To cut a long story short, I survived the initial bleed. With my wife's help, I visited my GP later in the day but he only prescribed something for my tummy and paracetamol for my head. It was 2 days later, when my wife brought me back to the GP with a continuing very severe headache, that he sent me to the Mater Hospital where the SAH was diagnosed after a CT scan. I was then rushed by ambulance to the Neurosurgery Ward at the nearby Beamont Hospital. The next day they did preliminary surgery to confirm that the SAH was due to a ruptured aneurysm (in the anterior communicating arteries) and the following day, they operated again to coil the aneurysm. When I awoke after the op, the feeling of relief in my head was fantastic and they told me the op was a success and that I had been extremely lucky. Due to the excellence of the professionals at Beaumont Hospital and to the help of my wife, I have now pretty well recovered and have little or no long-term impairments (I think?). Considering the statistics on SAH, I feel very grateful to be alive and to have recovered so well. I did have a bad pain in my colon for about 7/8 weeks which I initially attributed to constipation caused by the nimodipine tablets, but which I later worried might be something more. In any event the pain is nearly gone now but I'm having it checked by a specialist in a few weeks just to be sure. I'm back driving since last Friday and that is wonderful. The feelings of fatigue and occasional dizzy spells are still there but I realise that a full recovery will take another few months. I have not smoked since the SAH and while the stint in hospital made this easier, the withdrawal pangs are very bad at times. I realise that if I smoke again I'm asking for trouble and that is mainly what is keeping me going. That and the help of my fantastic wife and the good wishes of many friends. It is great to have a website like this where people can share their experiences and I have found this to be of tremendous help in my recovery. Thanks and Best Wishes,
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