I left you in Chapter 59 with a medical status that remained for a long while… Indeed all was going reasonably well considering my condition and known sequels.
8th June 2022 has been a key moment when I had to go to the ER
But I did not get there at once… one week earlier on 30th May when I had to call my GP as at the end of the day I simply fell on the ground and I got nauseous and it took me 15 minutes to crawl to a couch to get more stable.
My GP diagnosed vestibular vertigos and keep them posted if it does get worse and if it improves then no worries but let him know if it worsens.
As you can imagine it did improve and I went back to work on 7th June accordingly.
Interestingly enough, my boss mentioned to be really careful and consider not going to London for the fortnight to come and a colleague mentioned his dog’s ataxia and the risk linked to this… premonition???
Looks like it… at 5:30AM on 8th June I woke up and everything started to turn around me, fast time was a few seconds but the next one was lasting.
I could, though, ask Isabelle to call the emergencies and get a GP and an ambulance within 10 minutes at home.
Here you go now time to start the time in the hospital, 1st thing being a procedure to check the blood clot and intensive care and specific stroke care till 22nd June.
This is when you are glad to realise you are still alive but also look at your losses.
First of all I realise that I could still speak and make sense (started to think twice before answering a question i.e. the process was still right).
Secondly I realised I lost sensibility of the left part of mu body i.e. it all still works, I can feel my members but I cannot pain, warm, cold, … just like if it was under anaesthetics.
Thirdly, I lost my balance and cannot walk anymore.
This is in short my first assessment and it is mixed feelings as it could have been much worse but I also felt heavily disabled as I am stuck in bed with no way to get out of it and all I see is blur and no need to mention that I also lost some coordination between arms and legs.
I simply felt like a wreck!
I started at that level to do some physiotherapy but it was not really motivating as I was falling and not really able to resume even basic walking… eyes did not get better, the main progress was that I could eat normally (even if the taste was absent ;-)).
This is also the moment to start understanding where the stroke is coming from…
Got it explained and it started with bad news in the sense that the procedure did not discover the blood clot. This means that the clot might still be somewhere or the PICA artery just got a thrombosis due to my AML cure i.e. chemotherapy, diabetes, scleroderma, etc…
So you have now a good idea of my state of mind when I realized at hospital what my health status is… not brilliant!
In the next chapter, I will talk about rehab…