Stroke

I’M SITTING on the trolley-bed in the Accident & Emergency department of Lancaster hospital, awaiting the ministrations of the medics, and I’m wondering to myself if, now that I’m getting older, I can expect more of the same of this type of experience.

I suppose it’s inevitable, really.

It begins last night. I am viewing the late movie on the box, when suddenly my foot begins to tingle with what I take to be pins and needles. It quickly spreads to the rest of my leg – a kind of tingling numbness – from foot to upper leg.

I try to walk it off, but already it’s clear this is something very different.

I wonder weather to wake My Good Lady, but decide against it – no sense in disturbing her for what I hope might still be nothing. Maybe by tomorrow it might be back to normal…

In fact it isn’t, it's worse. The tingling feeling has actually spread to my left hand. I can prevaricate no longer. I get up and as gently as I can I tell MGL that I think I’ve suffered a stroke.

She immediately rings NHS Direct, and they soon dispatch a paramedic unit to check me over.

They aren’t absolutely sure, but they think I should be taken to the A&E unit of the hospital, to be more thoroughly examined.

It’s the beginning of a very long day, of being hooked up to monitors and of being generally scanned and probed and x-rayed, with long, long spells of tedium in between during which nothing seems to be happening.

Finally, finally! – the result that I’ve now steeled myself to expect: it is indeed a stroke, albeit a mini one, and with some luck, the symptoms might clear up completely. On the other hand, maybe not. We’ll have to wait and see.

After spending nearly nine hours in the place – with only a sandwich and a belated cup of tea by way of refreshment – my discharge paper is drawn up and I’m allowed to go home.

I have to go back on Monday for further scans, and the boring part is that I’m not allowed to drive for twenty-eight days in case I have a sudden further attack – a common occurrence, it seems.

A friend comes and collects us and takes us home, and also provides us with some homemade vegetable soup and a piece of shepherd’s pie – both of which we devour as if we hadn’t eaten for a week!

LATER: I’m please to note that already some of the numbness has begun to fade and that I’m no longer walking about like lame duck. Here’s hoping for the best, fingers crossed!