Me and My Damaged Brain

It is safe to say, I was frustrated. After finally managing to get some rest, I was woken and moved across the hospital. As we left A&E, I felt a wave of relief; it was only going to get better from here. How truly wrong I was.

So, the Ashwell ward is a general medicine-focused ward that caters to elderly/geriatric patients. I was 20 years old. They wheeled me into a room which had 5 other beds and one space, on the right-hand side closest to the windows, waiting for me. It was dark, and all the other patients were sleeping, so I was oblivious to the fact that the only space available in the whole hospital was in elderly medicine.

They rolled me into the gap, applied the brakes and went to hand me over to the nurses. After a short while, the nurses came to check on me and took my blood pressure. This was the first of my hourly readings; it drove me insane. Every hour, someone woke me up, putting the cuff onto my arm to take the reading. Looking back now, I feel so bad for the nurses caring for me; I swore and moaned every time they came over. But this became the least of my issues. I settled and tried to sleep, my head still feeling like it was ready to explode. Then the shouting began.

Every 20 minutes, an elderly lady in a private side room would start screaming “HELP” over and over again, while also ringing her call bell. The nurses ignored her the first few times, and I began to get more and more annoyed; why was nobody checking on her? After an hour of the screaming, I realised why: the nurses went in, and the lady was shouting about having been to the toilet. She had not. The nurses calmed her down and left her room, mumbling to themselves. Half an hour must have passed, and I finally drifted back into a restless sleep, then “HELP” again and again. The nurses again ignored her for a while before checking on her, and the same scene repeated. At this point I was shocked the rest of my bay were still dead to the world, I was so jealous . The morning was now fast approaching and the night shift were soon to swap out with the day team. Again the shouting came and I was ready to loose my shit, I was exhausted, still in the midst of the stroke and fed up of hearing the screams. By 7:30am the morning team went into her and low and behold this time she had been to the toilet, cue a new wave of noise sorting her out.

The catering team soon came round and gave us a choice of breakfast, and this was when I realised that I was probably the youngest member of my bay by about 50 years. My motor skills had now returned to a point where I was able to spoon my porridge into my mouth. The concentration it took sent a piercing pain to my head, but I relished the achievement as well as the first food I had eaten in 18+ hours. The morning passed slowly, until the doctors came round, along with the gawking.

A group of medical professionals gathered around the end of my bed, looking at my charts and talking to one another as if I wasn’t there. Then came the questions. What happened? How did you feel? How are you feeling now? How is the pain? Has this ever happened before? How long has your speech been affected for? I felt interrogated; please just read my notes and give me some pain relief, as I cannot think with you all staring at me like some sideshow freak. I was then informed that my CT scan provided no significant findings, but they cannot rule out a Subarachnoid Hemorrhage. They told me the plan was to take some further blood from me and perform a lumbar puncture test. I was to wait and after they had performed these tests someone from neurology would be round to speak to me.

They came and took more blood; this was fine. An hour or so passed, then it was time for the lumbar puncture. A local anaesthetic was injected into my lower back and given a few minutes to kick in. One nurse then explained I was to sit on the edge of the bed hunched over in the fetal position. She then came around to crouch down in front of me and help me breathe through the next step. A 3.5inch needle was then placed between the vertebrae in my spine. I felt a pop as it was put into place, then 30ml of my spinal fluid was collected to be sent off for testing. After, I lay flat on my back for 2 hours before I was allowed to sit up. The nausea and headache were excruciating, and the clinicians explained it would take up to 8 hours for my body to replenish the spinal fluid they had taken. I could no longer tell what pain was the stroke and what was due to the lumbar puncture.

Lunch came and went, and then the neurologist arrived. He looked over my notes and, just like every other doctor, asked me to relay my story to him. By this point, my speech was majorly improved, and I was speaking with more confidence. His decision was that I had a condition called Hemiplegic Migraines, which are migraines that mimic some symptoms of a stroke. He went on to explain that he suffers from this condition himself and finds that the weather is a massive trigger. The advice was to be off work for the next two weeks and get a medical alert bracelet in case this happens again, as I do not need to be in hospital. I was taken aback; I tried to explain I do not think this is right. Up until now, I had only had 2 migraines my whole life. How did I suddenly have a chronic migraine condition, and why was I still in so much pain? It was then decided that I would be referred for an MRI scan as an outpatient just to cover all bases, but the neurologist said I could go home; there was nothing else wrong.

At 16:44pm on the 11th May 2020, I was discharged from Ashwell ward at Lister Hospital with a diagnosis of Hemiplegic Migraines. I was sent home while my brain was on the tail end of a stroke.

I was discharged from the hospital while I was still having a stroke…