Back at Arrowe Park Hospital

So… you still want to know about fluff?  hehe.. sorry, I’m keeping you waiting a little longer; my next blog should introduce fluff to the world.

We made it home from Lancaster Royal Infirmary and was I pleased to see my bed!

Monday Morning, 15th July, we woke, Andy and I were talking as we lay in bed, suddenly I felt ‘the flip about to start’ an instant feeling of panic! not being able to stop it, I was feeling so out of control.

At the first mention of it Andy had grabbed the phone and had dialled 999 and was asking for an ambulance, as he talked and comforted me the sensation faded again but the heaviness in the arm remained, the operator told Andy a paramedic had been despatched and an ambulance would be following, Andy ran down stairs and opened the front doors ready for the medics and ran back up to me. Thankfully we’re less than two minutes from the ambulance station so whilst the emergency operator remained on the phone to Andy he was (now it sounds hilarious) stepping into Jeans trying keep hold of the phone, keep his balance, and look out of the window looking for the paramedic whilst comforting me!

Andy confirmed to the operator the paramedic was here and ended the call instructing the paramedic through the open window to come straight up. In no time I was having sticky pads stuck all over me, I was connected up to an ecg, was also having my temperature and blood pressure taken. The paramedic was using his phone and radio. He wanted me admitting to hospital having listened to our description of what had happened and on top of yesterday’s episode.

20 minutes(!) later an ambulance arrived, the paramedic had been trying furiously to find out what the delay was and was being told there was one (Ambulance) on its way. To this day we don’t know what happened, the crew explained they’d been called on to the peninsula (Wirral is a peninsula and shares its services with Liverpool on the north bank of the River Mersey) to attend a male patient but were stood down on route so having just exited the Mersey tunnel they turned around and headed back to Liverpool only to get a shout to come to me! They were badly briefed for they were still expecting to see a male patient! Note to ambulance crew Woman------->

 

The paramedic briefed the ambulance team they too felt that I needed to be in hospital however I was almost back to my old self, just the heaviness in my arm again and of course I was worried, I actually walked to the ambulance very slowly.

The ambulance crew were brilliant they warned me we would be travelling with ‘blue & two’s’ as in sirens and flashing lights, apparently in the cases of suspected strokes its standard protocol. Andy stayed behind to lock up then follow us.

I was straight in to A&E to be triaged; Andy arrived just in time to meet the Doctor who was thankfully the Doctor I’d seen on the Wednesday before on my very first admittance. He examined me and then explained he felt these were not TIA incidents and felt the apparent meningioma was part of the problem. He had me moved back on to the stroke ward again whilst more tests took place and I was kept under observations. I had one or two more flipping incidents (Struggling to remember some detail) on the ward but I soon recovered back to ‘normal’. I’d been put on steroids by now but just a low dosage as a safety precaution. I remained in hospital until Thursday 19^th  when it was decided I need to be referred to a neurosurgeon for they were now convinced these were not strokes/Tia’s but still adamant they couldn’t say for definite what the scan showed if it was in the meninge membrane or if it was actually on the brain. Mid-afternoon I was given all my meds including a new one to start taking from the next morning, a drug medically known as Keppra however,  quickly renamed by me as ‘Fuzzy drug’. ‘Fuzzy drug’ is an Epilepsy drug (no I do not have Epilepsy) to help control seizures.

Very mixed emotions at this point, I think I’m relieved to know I wasn’t having mini strokes but also concerned by the thing in my head. Well we said our goodbyes and walked off the ward. We’d walked to the elevator but I began to feel as I now call it whooshy headed, (you’ll get used to my quirkness soon teehee) I felt off balance and my arm was getting heavy again. There were seats close by and we made it to them, after a couple of minutes I said to Andy “lets go”. We made it to the elevator, the door closed and as we descended the one floor I felt shaky again, part of me wanted help, part of me wanted to get out of the hospital. Andy was extremely concerned he had me sit down, I was panicky. Andy called the stroke ward and sought advice he explained where we were in the Hospital. Although discharged they told us to wait where we were and one of the nurses came down with a wheel chair and took me back on to the ward where one of the Doctors saw me Still at a loss he told me to take my first dose of ‘fuzzy drug’ now. Within half an hour I felt better and this time was wheel chaired to our car. Once home I rested.

Andy and my closest friends suddenly became guardian angels; I wasn’t being left alone whilst Andy went to work. It seemed the fuzzy drug was having the desired effect; I wasn’t having any more ‘flipping’. I was feeling much better and our lives needed to go on irrelevant.

So in just over a week, I’d had three hospital admittances to two different hospitals, two ‘blue light’ ambulance journeys, three brain scans, around six tia’s/flipping episodes, two new drugs and a partridge in a pear tree and still no one knew for sure what was wrong with me…..