Stuart McAdam

Chicken Pie and Custard

So I'm in hospital and I'm refusing to accept help. I'm pretty independent minded. Like to think I'm a self-sufficient sort of guy. I've chosen pork and vegetables for me mains and I think I'll go for apple pie and custard for pudding. Yeah, lush.

My name is Stuart. I’d never been sick before in my life. My experience of hospitals was limited to minor voluntary nasal surgery back when I was a teen. I am fit and healthy and very active. I'm a tall, stocky fella – 6ft 3” and 15 stone, a former rugby player, into tennis, swimming and five-a-side football. I eat well and I exercise regularly; I do so more these days but I always have, really.

I lived with my girlfriend for a time before I plucked up the courage to get out of that particular broken-relationship. We left the flat and went our separate ways. I stayed with my brother; it was only going be for a month or two whilst I saved for a deposit on a new flat. My 2nd job was to supplement this. Problem was my brother lived 11 miles away from our old flat and from both my jobs….So I stayed with my ex at her new place the odd night when I was working late and and I was too late for the last bus 'home' – Me and her still got on as friends and her place was new and shiny....and near to town.

............And that’s where I was when I was attacked.

My stroke was classified as a “Brain Stem Infarction” and I was ultimately led to believe it had been a right b*****d - in fact, I hear it is the worst kind. No-one knew where it came from – it was soooo unexpected. I was just 36 years old. In fact it was that unexpected that on visiting an NHS drop-in centre on the same day I was diagnosed as having an ear-infection!

I spent 4 days at my ex’s house in bed thinking I had Labyrinthitis. I took pills for it. I spent another day or two being prodded and poked before I was officially diagnosed. And another day or two passed before treatment began. I’m told that if we were to act on strokes within the first 3 hours we have a reasonable chance at recovering most if not all of a survivor’s faculties.

However, my symptoms were so subtle no wonder no-one knew what happened. I was only a designated First Aider in the workplace. So what would I know? So what, that I had instantly wondered about stroke? You trust the professionals, don't you?

Many would say over the next few weeks though that I did not look like someone who’d had a stroke; initially my face did not droop at all. My speech was unaffected. The dizziness came and went so quickly. I could lift my arms over my head. My pupil on the affected side did not contract or dilate.

What I did experience in the moment (and it was a fleeting one at that) was akin to a sudden change in environmental condition in a pressurised and air-tight container. I had a high pitched noise screeching in one ear and a low pitch one in another. This followed a sensation like an electric shock in my neck. I can distinctly remember hearing a ‘buzz’. I was then drawn to the ground as if there were one magnet in the floor and one in my head. I lay there briefly fearing something profound. I observed that I was fine whilst prostrate though. I spoke only after a few moments had passed but I'd felt capable of speech, I just wanted to listen to my body for a wee while.

My ex had been bemoaning my ‘house-training’ only moments before. I was returning the sofa cushions I had been sleeping on to their rightful place and we had one of our regular altercations and now…….nothing. She had disappeared into the kitchen just before the attack. And now she was back and I was muttering something about electric shocks and magnets……

A lady on the NHS Helpline said it was unlikely that it was serious. Sounds like an ear infection she said. I would hear that again before this day was out. I went to bed because I was consumed with an instant fatigue. My equilibrium had gone wonky. I looked a little drunk but, hey! I was okay, it was just a little ear infection…..

Later I sat up and moved back to the living room. I felt groggy and I think I understood what Bruno felt like after 3 rounds with Tyson. As I was watching TV I instantly had this sensation that someone had pulled a bath-plug out from the back of my head. This was accompanied by a kind of gurgling noise – the kind your sink makes when the last of the water disappears down the hole. An unprecedented dizziness followed. So monumental it was, that I lay myself back down in the same spot I had earlier. This was a bit odd now – ear infection!?! The pins and needles started in now – I have been cursed with them ever since. They were in my left leg and the left side of my stomach back then. My ex made an appointment with the drop in centre. Hurrah! It WAS an ear infection. And the tingling was a stress reaction apparently. I was happy now - I had some pills an' everything! I was to stay in bed and only move very slowly for the next few days. This instruction may have saved my life....inadvertently. I rolled and lolloped about for four days all the time checking on my face and pupils and arms. I think somewhere in my, by that time addled brain, I knew this was no ear infection. The first full day after the event I'm in the spare bedroom trying to change after a shower. I found it very difficult in the shower – I eventually had to sit down. And now I was as mobile as a really s**t robot. The kind of tiny slow wind-up ones you get when you're a kid. But still I went to bed on the living room floor and took my antibiotics or whatever they were. That day I'd tried to use a keyboard but my left hand was really shaky and wouldn't do what I wanted. Still, I eventually managed to type up an email to cry off work. This left hand stuff was a new one on me though. Really, I should have called off all bets at that point but what can I say? I only had half a brain at that time!

Come the Wednesday (3 days after the attack) I thought my tongue was resting to the left and attempts at forced smiles seemed to show up a slight bias in direction also. This would be my last night in the real-world for a couple of weeks. I couldn't put my shoes on the next morning and my ex raced back to her house to find me scratching around with my socks. She'd seen enough and called an ambulance.

So, here I am one-handedly shovelling some broccoli into my mouth, looking forward to me afters. I'd never had Chicken Pie and Custard before – this was an all time low. I was so hungry though and there was no-one about. So I ate it. All of it. And d'yknow what? .....................It was absolutely 'orrible.

EPILOGUE

I was diagnosed with a hole-in-the-heart and a rare blood disorder. I'd never had any problems related to my heart or blood before but there you go. The rest of my story is available in article form and I'm thinking of attempting to write a book about my experiences. The most important thing, I think, is to get across that strokes can happen to anyone and can take any form (not just the most publicised). Even the professionals can be misled by the symptoms sometimes.

Additionally, since my stroke last year I have been prejudiced and discriminated against whether witting or not; I eventually became subject to the idea that if you look okay, you ARE okay. I'm a big strapping lad and everything and I look like I can take care of myself but I was very not OK.........and for a very long time. I have been patronised. Doctors, nurses and visitors leered over me and talked about me as if I wasn't there. I got news for 'em – I heard every word and understood everything. Just 'cos I had a stroke does not mean I am 'doolally'! I even know which nurse fancied who from which department. Since getting out, I have heard all kinds of innuendo and rumour in the workplace. Apparently I died in a work-building where I have never been. Or I fainted in the canteen. I did not faint anywhere! I was totally conscious throughout my stroke – this can happen – again, not everyone shows up the same old stereotypical way in a stroke. I've heard of others who ask debatable questions about how I look now. Incidentally, I’ve got photos from just before my stroke and after and people say if anything I look even younger and fitter!

I'm even expected to give up my seat on a bus for healthy folk just because they are a different sex to me, or because they look older and of course are bound to be weaker. In the street, I am bumped violently into and knocked off balance; I am then laughed at when I 'lollop' over to one side. I am told to 'ssshhhh' in a kind of prescriptive way when the case is that I'm unaware of my volume. People also look at me like I'm mad or deaf when I stutter or when I ask others to repeat themselves once or twice (tinnitus took over after the stroke – it sounds like an airport runway in my head some days). I am refused to partake in some adventure stuff 'cos no-one wants a dead guy on their conscience.

I have also experienced ignorance and indifference from both agencies and individuals; for example, just because I can sit up in bed and wipe my own a**e nowadays (not at the same time, obviously!) I'm not allowed Incapacity benefit. Even save for the fact that my own doctor and the occupational health team at my workplace have advised I don't work full time in my particular field yet. I get 5 hours pay a week and I'm still at my brothers. Oh, and god forbid you should ever talk about your experience!!

So, I am still living with practical everyday concerns related to my stroke; housing, work, benefits, doctors and other condition-related appointments, PFO Surgery, side effects of drugs and so on.

Apologies if any of the above sounds bitter but you should know I'm quite happy really. After all, I survived the mother of all illnesses bar perhaps the big C. And I came through stronger, fitter and perhaps more significantly, more humane! I will never again behave the way I see the majority behaving. I will instead follow the example of the some of the best Doctors and Nurses in the business. And the example of countless friends and family who 'get' that unless you've been there yourself you will never 'get' what it's like. I know I am where I am today (sat in front of a hot 'stove' – read computer – on a lovely spring day) because of all of them. I know who I want to be from here on in, and now I've got my energy back, I am very confident I will get there.

I'm happy to report that physically I am fully fit. I swim, ride a bike, jog, go down the gym, and hit the ol' heavy bags like a cheap Rocky. So that's another significant message to take from my story: A stroke does not mean it's curtains for you -

“It's not the size of the dog in the fight that counts, it's the size of the fight in the dog.” ANON

.....And I never stopped fighting.

Thanks to Stuart 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!)

• c/o PROFILES,
• Click here for address