Pauline Donner

It was a Friday night. I had been out for a meal, the company i work for were celebrating its 5th successful year in business. I was driving, so i wasnt drinking, not that i drank much anyway. I got home at 11pm, sat up chatting with my husband for a while and then drifted off to sleep. I awoke at 3am feeling sick, and rushed to the bathroom. I was pretty sick and put it down to having caught the virus my two children were still recovering from. I stayed in the bathroom on the floor and just dozed.

I awoke at 6am and this time I felt desperately ill. I felt my face distort almost as if I had dislocated my jaw and I suddenly slumped onto my right side. My balance had gone and I couldnt hold myself up. My right side was also weak.

I asked my husband to call a doctor, but he was reluctant as he thought I just had the same virus and the doctor wouldnt be too pleased. in the end I had to beg him. The doctor came at 11.30am and I was still on the bathroom floor. he gave me an anti-sickness injection and assured me I would feel better in an hour or so.

I went back to sleep and my husband woke me at 2pm to see how I was feeling. I was still being violently sick so he called the doctor back out. He checked me over again (even looked in my eyes) and shook his head as he couldnt find anything wrong. The doctor called an ambulance for me and I was taken away. My last memory was of my two children crying and screaming for me as they didnt understand what was happening to mummy or where she was being taken. They were only 2 and a half and four years old. They shouldnt be witnessing this. It really upset me and I just howled. in the ambulance I must have been drifting in and out of consciousness. The paramedic kept trying to keep me awake. I remember him saying I didnt have much oxygen in my blood but the rest is gone from my memory.

I got to hospital and I was left in a cubicle. Nobody wanted to help me except a young sister called Jane. I believe to this day that she saved me. I could see in her eyes that she was concerned, and she came to check on me every ten minutes. Each time she would ask me a question like who was the Prime Minister or who was the Queen of England. She knew something was desperately wrong. The ward doctor told me that all I had was a virus and that I would be sent home as he didnt want the whole of the ward to be infected. It was now Saturday night and I was to go home in the morning.

Later on that night I fell out of bed, purely as I had lost my balance and couldnt steady myself. I pulled the drip out of my arm and hit my head hard on the floor. It was a few minutes until anyone came to help me. Sister Jane had gone home and I think the other nurses thought I had been taking drugs. The disbelief was incredible.

The next day, Sunday, the same ward doctor came and checked me over and said I was to go home when my husband came in. I challenged him and said I felt desperately ill. By this time I had severe double vision, I was extremely dizzy, I had a very weak right side of my body and I had lost all my balance. But the doctor said it was a virus so he must be right.

When my husband came in later that afternoon (having found someone to look after our children) he was appalled at what he saw. I had only just come round enough to discover that I had no feeling down my left side of my body, and the right side of my face. He went off to demand an explanation from a doctor.

As it happened, the doctors had changed over and a young New Zealander came to see me. Jane told him her concerns and he actually listened to her and me. He did some neurological tests, and sent me for an MRI immediately. What they discovered still haunts me. I had suffered a double stroke, two clots going to two different parts of the brain. The part of my brain that was damaged was the size of an egg. However because they left me for two days before doing the MRI it was too late to distinguish the cause. It was decided (by the symptoms I portrayed) that I had suffered a dissection of the vertebral artery in my neck, possibly from being sick.

I was moved to the Rehab unit and that is where I stayed. Bearing in mind it was October, the consulants told my family I would not be out of hospital before Christmas. I went into shock I think. I had two small children who desperately needed their mummy back. I was so determined to get home that I seemed to manage the impossible. I had to learn to walk without balance, and do loads of physio to get my right side working again. I was out of that hospital within a month. I still had other problems, the numbness was still there and I didnt have any temperature control, I suffered from terrible verigo when I lay down but I could cope with that.

It was so good to get home, I went back to work after three months and I really feel that my work aided my recovery. I dont think I would have progressed so fast.

It is strange, but my personality has changed so dramatically. I now have emotional lability on top of everything else, and that is the most difficult side effect to deal with. My true friends have stayed true, putting up with a hell of a lot, but some of my friends are no longer friends and I find that hard to accept.

It is now twelve months on and several more MRI's, two CT Angiograms, and two CAT Scans still dont give me an answer as to what went so terribly wrong.

My motto? Survive each day, and everything else is a bonus. Im not ashamed, bitter or hung up that I had a stroke. I firmly believe it happened for a reason. And if that reason was to make me a better person then I accept that. I no longer take anything for granted. Each day with my children and my husband is a treasure, and I thank God that I came through it.

Thanks to Pauline for sending in her 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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