TIA and Minor Stroke

Yes.

 

 

Yes.

 

 

I took paracetamol and I was in bed. Because the, the headache just wouldn’t go, it just wouldn’t go.

 

 

No. I mean, I just had a headache that went on for three days. And if I didn’t, if I hadn’t needed food I wouldn’t have gone out on that fourth day because I just didn’t feel well.

I used to go out with the, the dog, I mean, the, it was my job to go out, to walk the dog and I was out and I don’t I’d been even, even told Enid this, I was out with the dog one morning and I was over talking to a friend like you meet out with the dog and I did have a, like just like a dip, a small dizziness.

 

And I think was that a warning sign, now?

 

 

It was just a minute or so. Because I was talking to this friend and we were stood in the what they have for the horses in over there and I had to turn round to the fence and get hold of the fence to make sure I didn’t, you know, fall over.

 

But it was only a second or so, I feel. So, I often think, was that a warning? And should I have done something then.

My, my reaction was not immediate. I waited for a couple of hours before I reacted. And that’s about, that’s due to ignorance. I did not know that the symptoms I was experiencing were connected directly to a minor stroke. It’s only subsequently I learnt that. But I knew that there was something very odd, and I suspected that it was a stroke. But there was a big gap, there was a knowledge gap. Now I’m very well aware that anything odd I’m going to, I will dial 999 or get somebody to take me to hospital, because it’s been explained clearly that there’s, that time is of the essence. And whereas we, most of us, I think know that, “Sharp pains in chest. [snaps fingers] React now”, odd symptoms round brain, no, we’re not, I’m not aware. I was not aware at all of the range of symptoms that one could experience. So that’s been an interesting learning.

I came home and I said to my husband, “You know, I, I felt really strange today.” And told him what had happened. And he said, “Are you sure you’re OK?” And I said, “Yeah, I think so, I think it must be the medication.”

 

Felt awful the next day. But again went to work. Came back. And I was sitting here in the evening and all of a sudden I got the sensation of pins and needles in my left arm and my left leg. Passed over in a couple of minutes so I thought, “Oh, it, it’s definitely the medication and I’m now getting used to it.” Had a doctor’s appointment on the Monday so I thought I won’t bother the doctor, I’ll just mention it, you know, when I go in on Monday.

Had a doctor’s appointment on the Monday so I thought I won’t bother the doctor, I’ll just mention it, you know, when I go in on Monday.

 

Mentioned it to her eventually [laughs] and she said, “Ohh, I think I need to refer you to the TIA clinic.” I said, “Yeah, OK fine.” Not knowing what TIA clinic meant and kind of not asking really. And I came home. It was about half past seven in the evening as it was a late appointment. Came home. Phone rings at nine o’clock the next morning to say, “Can you come in tomorrow?” I got, “Sorry? What’s, you know, what’s the rush?” And eventually I said, “No, I’m on annual leave at the moment my first day back at work tomorrow, so can I come in on Thursday?” And they said, “Oh, OK.”

The circumstances were that I was returning from a holiday in Crete. And it had been a horrendous day because we’d had tropical sands, rainstorms and I’d driven over 100 miles from where I was staying to the airport. And well, I was feeling rather sort of lethargic and whatnot during, before boarding the aircraft. When I boarded the aircraft I started to stow my luggage in the top. I found that after sitting down that I was having difficulty in raising my right hand, right arm. It wouldn’t come up any more higher than this. And also feeling numbness in the leg. And I suddenly realised that I was, I was probably suffering a mild stroke, this was sitting in the aircraft ready for takeoff. So being of the opinion I wasn’t going to stay in Crete with this happening, I …

 

I went to I stayed, and virtually slept all the way back, until we got back to Gatwick airport. And then having sort of, still feeling the effects of this because my speech was slurred. And but I did have movement in my arm and leg. And so having sort of struggled off there, collected luggage, I managed to make it to the public transport, bus from Gatwick that comes to [town]. I managed to successfully negotiate that. And it must be realised that this was the early hours of the morning, i.e. about one o’clock in the morning. I got on the bus, got back to [town name] and I’d previously arranged my son-in-law to pick me up in [town name] to take me home. And he was quite surprised actually when I phoned him up as he said when I met him in [town name] and he‘d come in his car, that in actual fact he wondered when I said to him that I suspected I’d had a minor stroke. And he said, well, yeah, what, he actually wondered because he was … the conversation he’d had, which I’d had with him over the mobile phone was such that he thought I was drunk there. So, anyway, I sorted that out. So he drove me home. And I said to him, “Don’t tell [daughter],”, that’s my, that’s his wife, my daughter. And of course, he did but there we are, I’d be surprised otherwise. So I got home, explained to the wife what had, more or less what had happened. Said I’d go and see the doctor in the morning.

I had been clearing up things in the lounge. We’d had, a priest was in that morning to celebrate Mass and things afterwards, things had to be put away. When I was putting things away, the telephone rang and I found I couldn’t get quick, I couldn’t get to it to answer it. And later on that day it does seem that I was sort of, something was slightly wrong, I didn’t really know what, but I wasn’t able to move around as I usually do. I had a carer here and she was concerned but we waited until the evening and then she called the doctor in. And she didn’t know what had happened. And the next day the doctor came again and maybe said I had had a slight stroke and he made an appointment for me to go to the hospital, which I did a week or two later.

Because we live too far away to the hospital, they couldn’t actually get an ambulance up the mountain where we live, so I had to get or my mum did, sorry, the next, next door neighbour from where we live to take us to the hospital. And it was a weekend because it was an out of hours and we got there [sighs] and he did examination, blood pressure and he checked my ears and he said I had viral infection. And just to go to see my normal GP in the week, the next week. So we did. And, and from there I was having, I don’t really, funny sensations. The doctor thought it was neuralgia, anxiety...

 

 

It was more in my face like, not like pins and needles, it’s not like that or, like something running on your skin. Kind of like that. But it would go numb and then come back and, but it was, it was more on my face than anywhere else on my body. And a lot of the doctors thought it was a severe anxiety problem and they was giving me medication to treat anxiety which in one way prolonged the stroke but didn’t really investigate TIA, the possibility of TIA at all, the lead up to a stroke.

 

 

TIA was after I’d had the big stroke.

 

 

Which was five months later.

 

 

No, nobody said it was a TIA or anything until I had the big stroke and they’d seen in my notes what had happened five months previous and said, “Oh, that was a TIA, somebody should have, you know, picked up on it.” So that’s when we first got told it was, these were mini ones leading up to the big one.

 

 

Yeah, having constant like mini TIAs. Some could last minutes, some could last days, hours.

 

 

R' Then I was OK, yeah. But I knew something was wrong because they was going to come back. But it was hard trying to get the doctor to listen that it wasn’t anxiety problems, it was something different going on.

I saw no specialist on stroke. Were this ever to happen again I probably wouldn’t leave the hospital, I would probably insist on staying. And I would probably just be a stroppy patient and wait in A&E.