The Buckingham Blog

I've been home now for a week, but not felt up to updating the blog.  This is the short version! 

As you can imagine I've had a few weeks from hell. It started with heart palpitations, I then got pains in my chest, then I was feeling so ill, sick, dizzy, lightheaded,faint etc. My medication for the heart palpitations was reduced and I did feel marginally better. Then my doc wanted me to have an "echo" on my heart but called head of cardio for second opinion. He said either an urgent referral or admission to acute medical ward. I chose urgent referral.

2 days later I got tingling down my left side, upper body and face. I went to bed hoping it'd go away, but by the morning it hadn't and I called NHS 24. They calmly told me to get to A&E very quickly and if it worsened I had to pull over (James driving) and call 999.

I was in A&E for a few hours, got a chest x-ray done and ECG and some bloods I think. The doc there spoke to cardio who said they were happy it wasn't a heart problem, but doc wasn't happy for me to go home, so she spoke to neurology who wanted me kept in. I was moved to the acute medical ward. I cried at the first doctor who spoke to me as it was scary, everyone was old an most had dementia. Then after I was assessed there, a lovely lovely irish doctor came to see me. He said he wanted me on his ward, but not to be alarmed when I saw it was a stroke ward. So about 6pm I was taken there.

I had to be wheeled through the males bit to get to the female bit and all of them were in bed, mouths open and things up their noses and masks on. When I arrived at my bed there were 2 ladies sat in wheelchairs staring into space, each about 90. Opposite was a lady flat out with oxygen on and lots of drips and machines beeping and lastly was one in the next bed, about 60 talking to herself and halucinating.  It was grim.

On Monday I had my neck arteries scanned by ultrasound, I had blood taken so many times, I had ECG's done loads, Tuesday I had a holter monitor fitted to monitor my heart rate for 24 hours. Wednesday I had more X-rays I think, I had an MRI on Thursday, a CT scan on Friday. Most of these things were coming back clear which only caused more confusion as to why I had all these things wrong.

I then had to speak with a neurologist, who decided he wanted a lumbar puncture done. I had this at 5pm on the Friday night and have never been through anything worse in my life. Labour and my 2 c-sections might have seemed bad before, but this was in another league. I was screaming in pain, they kept giving me more anaesthetic (had "5 or 6" in total) but still I could feel the needle in my spine. They attempted to gain fluid from my spine 5 times, but I begged them to stop. I lay sobbing for an hour afterwards and was (am) a bit traumatised by it all. So all that for nothing, not a drop of fluid to test. I was in agony and it stopped me moving about much for days.

Anyway, the outcome is that I did have a stroke, but as nothing is showing up on any scans it's officially unconfirmed.  I feel like I've been poked and prodded and bled in all directions and have still no proper answers. Although as my lovely irish consultant says, I "do" have answers, I now know I'm not going to keel over from anything brain related, heart related, artery blockages etc. So anything sinister is ruled out.

I absolutely could not fault the NHS system in handling my case. They could have done a test or 2 and sent me home, but I was in a week and had all possible options tested, tests that cost a lot of money for the NHS and tests that some people wait 3 months each for, I had the whole catalogue in a week! The ward was spotless, the staff were brilliant despite being run off their feet, nothing was too much trouble.

Thanks to Maria especially for looking after one or both kids every day for a week to let James get to hospital.  Also thanks to those who came to visit me in the evenings to stop me going (more) insane, Katy, Gillian, Dave, Maria, Sarah (with the McDonalds!) and Julie.  Thanks to Dad for coming up last week and putting up with my crying wobbler! 

Julie.xx

P.S.  The inevitable question - some have asked, no doubt everyone is thinking it.  This has NOTHING to do with my diet.  I spoke to the consultant who is one of the top in hospital, and also a dietician about it.  First of all I was not starving myself, and secondly I am vegetarian so was not doing Atkins which is the diet that got the bad press (though even if I was it'd be fine too) I was eating lots of fresh fruit & veg, eggs, cheese, just no pasta rice and potatoes, which is actually fine by them.