Life//Adventures

I had a bit of a scare on friday night. On Thursday I noticed a little blurry spot on my vision, after a couple of hours it went away and I thought nothing more of it. The next day I read something about TIA’s (mini or ‘silent’ strokes) that linked it to ‘aura’ migranes. where your vision is affected but you dont have a headache, so when it happened again at about 8pm on friday night whilst I was watching Children in Need I managed to freak myself out. My friend told me to ring NHS direct and they told me to go to A&E so my friend Eilish came round to take me to hospital. I thought i’d be out again in the next couple of hours but I wasnt. 

I was first seen my a doctor who did all the usual tests, blood pressure, temperature, he then checked my eye and said that everything seemed fine but he’d ring the medical team to check. They said they didnt need to see me and put the phone down. 5 seconds later the phone rings again “wait did ypu say she is 89 or she was born in 89?” doctor “born in 89 yes thats what i told you” “OK we need to see her” 

After checking me over again and me and Lish witnessing a lot of screaming patients they decided they wanted to keep me in over night to check on me and give me a CT scan. They took my blood and sent me off to have my brain scanned. After an hour or so I got transferred from A&E to another ward which I assumed would be some kind of over night but when I asked where they were taking me “solomon” they replied. My eyes welled up. That’s where I was before - the stroke ward. Even Lish looked scared. Met by a nurse on the transfer I asked her, so why am I going to the stroke ward has something happened? “Well we don’t know we can’t tell from your brain scan” I started freaking out, “so is there new damaged?” “We’re not sure” she replied. ‘right’ I began crying so what was going on? after asking again and again she said ‘we have to get a doctor to look at is because we don’t know how to read it’ YOU STUPID IDIOT you should have just said straight away ‘we aren’t qualified to read it so we’re just taking you here as a precaution because it happened before, not scared the absolute life out of me!!

So I stayed the night and Lish bless her heart stayed with me untill i went home. Can’t thank her enough I really didnt want to be alone. By this time the doctor had checked my scan and said there was no new damage so I was confused as to why I had to stay. It was already around 3am and I just wanted to curl up in my bed but they thought it would be best for me to see the stroke specialist. Annoyed we tried to get some sleep and failed miserably. The morning came and we waited for the stroke specialist. Luckily she came at around 9 and it was lovely dr Gainsborough who had come in on her day off when I had first been admitted. strangely I recognised her straight away. She said she had looked at my scan and compared it to last time. It’s healing well there is just a little bit of scar tissue left apparently so thats good news. she said I was doing really well and she could hardly believe how far i’d come “you must be working really hard” she said. 

As much as I didn’t want to spend the night in Hospital I know I did the right thing and it’s always better to be safe than sorry 

My friend just text me saying Yasmin contraceptive pill is being phased out in the UK cause it’s been proven 4x more likely to cause clots & strokes!!! Obviously im happy as it will prevent it from happening to other girls but omg I am so angry it hurts.

When I was in hospital on the stroke ward I found out that Jessie J, who’s music I already loved, had a stroke when she was 18. I began listening to more of her music and have listened to it on an almost daily basis ever since. At Glastonbury despite still at that time being heavily reliant on a wheelchair I stood up and danced for most of her set. No artists music has ever meant so much to me, especially Big White Room - although I still don’t know if she wrote it about her stroke experience (it was the first song she wrote and she started writing at 18…) I relate to it so so much  

“I feel young, broken, so so scared,
I don’t wanna be here anymore, I wanna be somewhere else,
normal and free, like I used to be,
But I have to stay in this big white room
with little old me”

When I found out she was playing in Brighton I was absolutely devastated that it was sold out and spent £85 on 2 standing tickets. Last Monday my housemate Megg entered a competition to win a meet and greet and tickets to the gig, she had to answer as many questions as she could about Jessie in 30 seconds and stay top of the leader board until wednesday. she managed to get 5 right, the following day the girl got one and the day after scored 3, and that was it, we won. we were meeting Jessie J the next day! 

I decided to write her a letter so I could tell her how she had helped in my recovery, I basically told her how knowing she had been through it when it first happened to me helped me have hope and know that I wasn’t alone. I wrote about Glastonbury and said that the lyrics to who you are taught me not to be ashamed to cry.

“seeing is decieving, dreaming is believing,
it’s OK not to be OK
sometimes it’s hard, to follow your heart,
tears don’t mean you’re losing, everybody’s bruising
Just be true to who you are “ 

So we went to the meet and greet, we queued up behind about 48 other people patiently waiting to meet Jessie, I was so excited, this 23 year old girl is someone I look up to and feel so close to despite only knowing her music. the wait managed to help me keep my cool and I think knowing I had something to talk to her about numbed the nerves. We walked in to the room and there she was with her jet black hair and her perfect fringe “ohhhh you’ve got a poorly foot, what have you done?’ I was quite nervous about telling her as I know when I find out other people have had a stroke it breaks my heart but I said it “I had a stroke” she instantly put her hand on her heart and said “babe” which is a moment I know I will never forget.

“I had a stroke, I can’t remember how old I was?”
“I think I read you were 18”
“yeah, I was. How old are you?”
“21, well I’m 22 now I was 21 when it happened”

she then asked me when it happened and how it affected me, she said mine sounded worse than hers which I (probably rudely) agreed. At the end of the day, every stroke is life changing and she too once wondered if she would ever walk properly again and is now clearly an amazing person because of it. She told me how it affected her and that it took her a year to fully recover before getting on the floor and signing my splint “becki :) ‘just be true to who you are’ Jessie J” I asked her how her foot was since she had her cast off (for non-fans she broke it falling off a stage earlier in the year) She said it’s better and pointed out that she never said she couldn’t wear heels again just that her physio had told her she MIGHT not be able to, and lets face it - physios are not always right. She showed us how high she could come off her heel and said she might only be able to wear tiny heels. I gave her my letter saying ” I wrote you this to tell you how you’ve helped me with my recovery” and we left. 

As we were walking down the corridor Megg said she looked back before we left the room and Jessie was patting her eyes “ohhhh fuck” i was so overwhelmed I almost cried my first tears of the evening. she could just have been fixing her make up but who knows.

She opened the set with ‘Big White Room’ and I managed to keep myself composed, only having a couple of tears but before she played ‘who you are’ she gave a big speech about how she writes music for her fans and that she would do anything for them so she is so happy when she hears that not only does she inspire people but that her music helps people heal. Now this probably wasn’t aimed at me but I practically burst into tears and pretty much cried for the rest of her set. 

What I love about Jessie most is that at such a young age she is so aware of everything. for instance, when I went to see McFly before I had started walking their support act shouted ‘everyone on their feet, we don’t want to see anybody sat down’ wher as when Jessie introduced ‘stand up’ she thoughtfully said ‘if you can stand up then please do’. Seriously what a way to show every single person in the audience that you are thinking of them and aware of their abilities. 

I have felt very emotional today, I think I am still really overwhelmed. This morning I had physio with Maria who works mostly on my arm and had, she had me trying to extend my fingers and it’s hard hard work, I started getting teary and when I started wiggling my thumb I cried and cried. 

I suppose now all thats left is for me to say thankyou to everyone that made this experience possible for me,  and thankyou to everyone who has made the last 8 months easier for me my friends, family, colleagues at Urban & juice, bands, different strokes, the stroke association and fellow stroke survivors. 

“if you don’t reach for the moon you can’t fall on the stars so i live everyday like its my last last last…” - stand up

this is my response to the reply on the previous post (i cant seem to do it on the post) I’m not sure if you meant how I respond to people aking or how i’d like others to respond to being told so I’m going to reply to both.

I guess with people asking I try to respond honestly and try to remember that it is just curiosity and that by tellling them I am doing my small part in raising awareness in strokes of younger people.

I think when i tell people that I’ve had a stroke the best way for them to respond is to act interested and not feel sorry for me but also not be ignorant to how serious it is, some people will then say ‘yeah so whats happened to your leg?’ or as i said before ‘it’s just one of those things really’ which I think shows the lack of knowledge people generally have about what a stroke really is. Not that I can blame them I would have been exactly the same before february.

I actually have a perfect example of a good conversation about it with a stranger from last night. I was at my internship at Juice 107.2 and we had Cave Painting in for an interview (have a listen they are really really good) before the interview I took my splint off because my foot was hurting and as they were about to leave I mindlessly started putting it back on to walk back to the desk. Their tour manager asked what I had done to my leg so i told him and he replied ‘sorry’ i laughed and said ‘well it was definitely your fault’ which he also laughed at and then asked when it happened, how it affected me and said how well he thought I was doing. Conversations like this are always much easier,  Not because they tell me how great i’m doing but because he (at least seemed) genuinely interested. 

So I guess that’s how it would be nice for people to respond in a similar way, If you’re brave enough to ask the question be brave enough for the answer.

Yesterday I was walking into our courtyard on the way back from the shop and you may have noticed from my ramblings that everytime I leave the house someone that crosses my path feels it necessary to ask what’s wrong with my leg. Yesterday was no exception. 

“oooh what have you been upto?”

“nothing?”

“too much drinking?” 

“nothing fun”

“skiing?”

“no seriously, nothing fun”

“seriously what have you done?”

“I had a stroke”

“oh well it’s just one of those things these days isn’t it”

“er yuh”

ONE OF THOSE THINGS? Why the heck would I agree to that? One of those things would be hitting your head when you stand up on the bus, One of those things would be slicing your finger when cutting an onion, One of those things would be stubbing your toe when you’re rushing around in your room. Strokes are not One of those things, disability is not One of those things, cancer would not be One of those things.

So no, it’s not one of those things. It’s one of the hardest things anyone will ever go through. People are so stupid!!! 

So, It’s 5am and i’m wide awake because the effects of the injection are wearing off. I’m absolutelty freaking out because I decided to keep my splint on last night to try and get an over night stretch on it. my foot is now swollen. All thats going through my mind is ‘did i have it on too tight, why is it swollen? could it have caused a clot? WHY THE HELL DID I KEEP IT ON. i’m now freaking myself out on google, normal…it could be anything but by the sounds of it most likely ‘bad circulation’ or high blood pressure, so that’s it then, the strap was too tight.

This is just one of the many times I freak out that it’s going to happen again because that damn hole is still in my heart!!!