Nigel Edney

My name is Nigel Edney, and in February 2002 I was fit and healthy - I was 39 years old, I had just got over a cold, and had run Chichester 10k in 36 minutes, so things were looking okay. When I was out running with my usual group on Tuesday night following the 10k I had a real toothache on my left hand side, which after around 5 miles suddenly disappeared - and my left eye went haywire. It was a really weird feeling, my eye was uncontrollable for around 5 minutes, and afterwards I just ran back on my own. Quite a few of the club members asked how I was, and I told them I felt fine, which was true. Didn't know I'd just experienced a TIA...!

I felt ok the next morning, and because I had the week off work to spend some time with my daughter, we went to the pictures to see Monsters Inc. I paid for us to get in, and I was just walking into the cinema when I had the most overwhelming urge to sit down. So I sat in row A, with my daughter beside me, when I noticed my wallet on the floor. Strange, I thought, and bent down to pick it up, which is when I noticed the total paralysis in my right arm. I was just able to get myself upright again, due to my right leg being totally paralysed as well, when my daughter turned round to me and asked if I was all right. I shook my head and she said should she go and get someone, to which I nodded vigorously.

A woman from the cinema came in and laid me on the floor in the recovery position, and all the time people were coming in to the cinema - it was a really weird experience, not that I cared! Then a paramedic turned up, he gave me the once over and correctly diagnosed a stroke, which I understood, because I had felt no pain at all. Given my background as a Life and Disability Underwriter I knew that this was pretty bad. He put me on oxygen, which really helped, as everything was getting a little fuzzy by that time. Then the ambulance crew turned up and loaded me into the ambulance for the trip of about 800 metres into Crawley hospital. The ambulance woman asked me a question, to which I responded with total gibberish, and then I was sick all over her.

The next few hours are a bit weird, I don't remember too much about what happened, but I went in for a CT scan, and apparently I was swearing at the doctors (sorry!), and eventually I ended up in a recovery room with two nurses, on oxygen. The doctors couldn't believe that I was still alive, they reckon what really helped me was being so fit, and so close to hospital. I reckon being with my daughter helped me, for someone aged only 10 at the time she showed real courage to go and get help. Unfortunately the TPA drug only came out about 6 months after my stroke, so I didn't have that.

Some feeling was regained overnight, in my leg and my hand. Then eventually I went up to the ward where I was staying, and insisted on trying to get into bed myself... big mistake as I couldn't walk, my right side collapsed and I ended up in a heap on the floor. That's when I gave up trying to fight the stroke, and to get better more carefully. I slept for hours every day on the ward, which was my recovery. The nurses there were marvelous. My ex-wife came to see me with my daughter, Mum and Dad, friends from the running club, work, and other friends.

I spent three weeks in hospital, including trips to Redhill for an MRI scan, a scan upstairs at Crawley which was strange because it made me yellow (the dye used in the test), and finally a nightmare endoscopy up in London to check my heart out. All the while my feeling was coming back, and by the end of my time in hospital I was able to walk everywhere, use my right hand to write, and my speech had returned, although when I got tired I still slurred my words. I had to re-learn all the phone numbers that I used every day, which was weird, and some medium term memories have disappeared. When my daughter reminds me that such and such happened, I have no memory of it at all.

My stroke was due to a wound in my carotid artery on the left side, which blood had got behind and eventually lifted away. I still don't know how it got there, or whether it will happen again. The debris from the wound eventually ended up in my cerebral artery, which is when the stroke occurred. The yellow dye test really showed up the difference between the two sides of my head - on the left side the carotid artery was virtually closed down, on the right side it was huge. The hospital discharged me on Warfarin, so I had to go back in twice a week for that to get sorted out.

After I got out of hospital, I was walking everywhere for quite a while, then after about 3 weeks I decided to try and run again. All I did was a 1½ mile route that I knew, and it nearly finished me, I was so tired when I came home. More sleep! But I carried on, gradually building up the miles. After a few weeks I was allowed back to work, where I still am today. I didn't race again until the end of September, just to get used to the crowds of people around me, then I did the Brighton 10k in November 2002 in 36.30... which due to a weird set of injuries (leg related, nothing to do with my stroke) is my best time to date. And I eventually got to see Monsters Inc., on video with my daughter at Christmas.

A couple of years after my stroke, I'm happy, living with my partner, and I'm just coming back into running. My arm and leg are fine now, my writing has shrunk down so it's quite small, and sometimes I get really tired, but if that's all I have to live with, that's fine by me.

Thanks to Nigel for sending in his profile. Anyone else who would like to share their story can send it along with a photograph (if you're not shy!)

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