Life//Adventures

I haven’t posted about this yet as it completely freaked me out and I found that the more I talked about it the more I freaked.

The Friday before the jubilee weekend I went to my friends leaving party, the same night I got surrounded by those boys, and I accidentally got quite drunk. Despite the hangover, the next day I felt fine and thought nothing of it but the next morning was when I could have cried I was so frightened.

Having slept on my right side I woke up and rolled straight onto my back and realised quite quickly that I couldn’t feel my right arm, I tried to move it. Nothing. ‘oh my god I’m having a stroke’ I thought. It was my right arm, what the hell was I going to do? I can’t use my left hand and for my right to not be moving at all scared me so much. After about 20 seconds of trying to move it came back and the numbness subsided. Thank god I thought but then it hit me ‘what if it was a TIA?’ I rang my mum as I was meant to be going to meet her in London ready for the Jubilee concert. She said I had just given myself a dead arm, which is what most people would realise but knowing these were signs of a stroke I couldn’t help but panic.

I went to London and felt fine, having a great time partying with the queen and spending a fab weekend with my mum. I went back home on the tuesday, to my flat, alone. I started panicking again, I rang my friend Christian and asked him if he would stay the night. At about 2am he woke up to go to the toilet which woke me up and I freaked, I thought my face was numb and I felt wierd! I called a paramedic who arrived within ten minutes.

The paramedic asked me what I was feeling, checked my eyes, blood pressure, blood sugars and movements and told me he wasn’t worried, I didn’t seem like I was having a stroke or TIA and to be honest I felt nothing like I had felt when I’d had the stroke. He said I seemed anxious and should make an appointment with a dr in the morning.

At the doctors I explained what had happened, she asked me what I had been doing since the stroke and suggested that I may have anxiety that is only just surfacing because as I had been so busy since it happened with Physio & Uni I hadn’t had time to freak out and now that everything’s calmed down I am doing just that. I was referred to counselling (which I still haven’t been contacted about) and I was quite satisfied with the outcome.

I started getting used to being alone again until 2 weeks later it happened again and this time I wasn’t sure if I had been sleeping on it or not. Sobbing I rang my mum again, trying to use my rational mind to remember what the dr and paramedic had told me. I made another drs appointment.

I rang the brain and spine helpline who said because of the short length it lasted I had nothing to worry about and I found them very helpful with their advice, drink plenty of water, try to sleep in a different position and eat properly.

A blood test had shown that I have a ferritin deficiency which is how iron is carried about the body and the dr said what I was experiencing could be similar to ‘Saturday night palsy’ where exhaustion and dehydration causes you to sleep in one position throughout the night leading to a trapped nerve.

With the ferrarin suplement tablets, drinking more water and sleeping on my left side it hasn’t happened again *touch wood* and I’m feeling much happier again.

Not that I am feckless, but when it comes to the time I am able to work again, the likelihood is that despite wanting too I wont fall straight into a full time job & in that case no housing benefit = homeless and moving to a city where it will be much harder to get a job in the career I want = not helpful. Might just go and live in a field.

Today started out beautifully, I left my house to go swimming as I do every tuesday, I caught a taxi as I normally do but the sun was shining and I decided I was going to have a short walk along the seafront afterwards. 

Whilst in the pool I managed to get my left heel to hit the floor, The first time i’ve been able to since my stroke, the buoyancy and the shortening in my calf had been preventing it. It felt amazing and I can only hope that it means I have regained a little more length or control in my muscles. I left swimming feeling very excited and caught a taxi home to put some shorts on, dry my hair and take a short walk along the sea front. Yesterday I had my splint adapted as it had given me two pressure points, one on the ball of my foot and one on the side by the little toe, they were uncomfortable but not painful unless I had been walking for about five minutes. The orthotics guy, Mark, added a padded area under the arch of my foot and whilst it took the pressure off the points I already had I could feel the new padding rubbing my foot as I walked around the rehab centre, He thinned the padding out a bit and the next time i tried it it felt fine. However as I walked along the sea front I found it getting sore. I found a spot on the beach and sat around for a couple of hours before meeting my friend in town. As I was walking to town though, the pain in my foot was so excruciating I had to stop literally every two steps I took. When I came across a step I took a seat to investigate the pain. A huuge blister had developed on the arch of my foot that was way more painful than the pressure points I was experiencing before, I felt sick with pain and rang the rehab centre to make an appointment to have it changed again. They offered me an appointment on Monday but I explained that I could hardly walk and was in a world of pain but still the earliest they could fit me in is Friday, I’m pretty annoyed about this because I highly doubt i’ll be able to leave the house until it’s changed again as now it even hurts to just sit with the splint on my leg so anywhere I want to go I will need to get a taxi. Goodbye money. rant over

At Easter I received a phone call from Merry at the stroke association to say that they had been allocated some tickets to the Queens Diamond Jubilee concert and wanted to know if I would like to go. I said yes straight away as I love music and mostly because I knew Jessie J was playing but I didn’t really know how lucky I was to have a pair of tickets. I wanted to take my mum as she had applied for tickets in the ballot but were unsuccessful and i thought she deserved it as she’s been pretty epic for the last 15 months and well the rest of my 22years. I had also found out that Joanie and Sarah Scott were going and we have all been talking for a while and been keen to meet. Sarah had a stroke when she was 18 and although our strokes affected us very differently we have very similar attitudes towards what’s happened to us (look her up on YouTube!)

We were very lucky as not only did we get tickets to the concert but also to the picnic in the palace gardens.

I’ll give you a little run through of the day.

The first treat of the day was a hair cut and style and the Toni & Guy concept store in Sloane Square. This was complimentary from the stroke association as Toni of Toni and Guy has previously had a stroke and wanted to give something back to the charity. We met Sarah and Joanie there which was just lovely and we had our hair glammed. As we were in Sloane Square I of course pretended I was in Made in Chelsea. I opted for a messy doughnut up do as it is something I can’t do by myself with one hand. I loved it.

Afterwards we grabbed a quick lunch and made our way to Buckingham Palace to join the queues for the picnic. The gates opened at about 3pm and we had to go through heaps of security before reaching the front of the palace. It felt very surreal being stood behind the gate that I’ve previously stood on the otherside of being a tourist. We then walked through a courtyard to collect our picnic baskets which there were piles and piles of before walking through three rooms of Buckingham palace before getting into the garden. The three rooms we walked through we’re absolutely stunning and the carpets were incredible, so soft and bouncy I really just wanted to throw myself on the floor and stay there for a while. We were some of the first into the garden where they had a steel drum band playing loads of classics. We grabbed some seats and collected our complimentary champagne which me and Sarah both knocked over. Both really were my fault and I’d like to call this the Cobb curse. The picnic was delicious although I wasn’t too keen on the cold soup…

Mum and Joanie fangirl’d over some of the royals greeting people in the garden whilst me and Sarah ate icecream in the rain. I’m sure it would have been different if it was prince Harry as I now have a mega crush on him, but they were following sophie of Wessex and prince Edward, whoever they are

At about 5pm we we’re asked to make our way to the concert area, our seats were right I’m front of the royal box (perfect perving spot for Harry) and David Walliams was a couple of rows behind us! I’m sure most of you saw it on TV so I won’t go into it too much, my mum loved Robbie Williams and Jessie J was obviously my highlight, I spotted her before she was even on stage I’m such a geek! The common wealth band gave me goosebumps singing ‘sing’ and Elton John singing ‘Your Song’ was incredible as its one of my all time daves and apparently mum used to sing it to me when I was a baby so that was nice and sentimental!

It was such an incredible night and I feel very privelidged to have had this once in a lifetime experience and to have seen so many incredible artists that I never imagined I would get a chance too! Cheryl cole, I could have lived without.

Afterwards I was very tired and there were no taxi’s so we made one of those men on bikes with carriages take us back to our hotel. His legs must be made of steel!!

Absolutely fabulous day, Thank you Elizabeth & The Stroke Association

Last Friday my friend Amy was having a leaving party and so I went to meet Alex for a couple of drinks before, I caught a bus to Churchill Square and began walking to the pub. As I was walking I heard a group of guys sniggering, I thought nothing of it and carried on walking. Next thing I knew two ‘lads’ who looked a couple of years older than me, a bit chavvy and sounded like they were down for a jolly from London were stood in front of me  whilst two were stood behind me. I stopped walking naively thinking maybe they wanted to chat but they didn’t, one of them said ‘you can walk’ kind of waving me along with his hands, I still stood there, now feeling confused. “Don’t worry my brothers disabled too”, I quickly realised where this was going but hoping that I had it wrong I said “Oh yeah, whats wrong with him” they all laughed and It didn’t take much to realise that his brother wasn’t disabled but that they perceived me to be. The next bit of the ‘conversation’ went a little like this “Where did you get your shoes from? Are the NHS prescription?” “yeah did you get them free from the NHS?” I have to admit that if i’d said this to one of my friends about myself I would probably have found it hilairious but coming from a group of guys i didn’t know, it was scary and offensive. “They’re not even reebok” No, they’re from shoezone, not that I told them this. I’m not going to waste my money on expensive trainers when my splint rips them to shreds and they need replacing every couple of months. I started to walk away and realising I wasn’t retaliating they walked too. “What happened to you then” they eventually asked. “I hope you all get hit by a bus” I replied still walking away. It was very hard to not cry as I walked to the pub but I knew that by crying they would have won, they didnt deserve my tears. In hindsight I wish I had said to them “Does it make you feel like men? Surrounding a girl who you perceive to be disabled and verbally abusing her?” and I also wish I’d called the police but at the time I just wanted to enjoy my night and forget about it. I know it sounds quite tame but I felt very vulnerable as im sure any girl would if they were surrounded by 4 guys. the fact that anyone took time out of there day to do this baffles me and I can only imagine it was because of their own fears about disabilities and i’m sure one day karma will bite them on the ass and they’ll look back to that day and realise what ignorant idiots they were.

On May 22nd I had a medical assesment with atos healthcare for my benefits which I’m pretty sure has come about because my old GP is an idiot and knew nothing about strokes (and from my friends past experiences with him I would also suggest he has no idea about mumps or urine infections either) so basically he’s pretty poor at his job. Anyway I got called for an assessment and for big medical appointments I get my mum or dad to come down to take me so that I have a second pair of ears for whats being said and so my mum came down the evening before to take me to the assesment missing a day from work and taking approx a four hour drive. Two hours before the assessment I get a phonecall from the company to say the appointment has been cancelled because their ‘doctor’ is off sick. It all sounded a bit suspicious and we’re pretty sure they messed up the appointment time and so cancelled on us. It’s also a little bit ironic that a doctor who is judging wether or not people are fit for work is taking the day off for being ‘sick’. It obviously annoyed us alot not only that my mum had driven all that way but also because the person we spoke to refused to do anything about it and didnt even offer to see if they could swap any appointments around with someone who is a bit more local. My mum then went anyway to complain as if I had rang up to say I was too ill or tired to go they would have cancelled my benefits and yet it was acceptable for them to cancel two hours before. They said next time they would call in advance to find a time that was suitable for someone to come down and take me we accepted that and I waited for a phonecall.

A phonecall never came and instead in the post today I received a letter simply saying ‘as you know we need to assess you, your appointment has been rescheduled too 22nd June if you do not attend the appointment you’re benefits may be affected’ 

I worry so much about finances, having worked since I was 16 I hate the thought of not being able to earn my own money but at the moment it just isnt realistic, I still get extreme fatigue and pain in my foot, plus I cant walk far and still have no extension in my left hand. Until I get the fatigue back undercontrol I would end up letting a workplace down more often than I could help them. Its hard because I want a job so much and want to  find one as soon as possible but I know that untill ive made a bit more of a recovery now isnt the right time.