by Chris Birch
'So, anyway, I said to her…' Mum rattled on beside me.
Nan looked up and realised I wasn’t listening.
'You ok love?' she asked.
'Just popping to the loo,' I said with a forced smile.
I rushed upstairs, closed the bathroom door behind me and sank to the floor, suddenly huge sobs shook out of my body. I forced my hands on top of my head and tried to push back against the pressure in my skull.
How am I ever going to get on with my life with this pain following me around? I thought.
Tears rolled down my cheeks, I was defeated, what little energy, or, fight I had left had evaporated. Feeling something on my shoulders I looked up, Mum had kneeled down next to me to hold me.
'I can’t do it any more,' I admitted, hot salty tears poured into my mouth.
'If this is what life is going to be like then I don’t want to live'.
My words reverberated around the bathroom. It was the first time I had admitted how I was really feeling and from the hurt expression on Mum’s face it was clear she was shocked.
'At least if I died….the pain would end,' I admitted in between sobs.
It was a scary realisation, not just for me but for Mum too.
'Don't say that,' she spat, her worried expression had turned into an angry frown, her eyebrows slightly raised, 'I don’t want to hear you say that'.
I swallowed my worries and smiled back at Mum, it felt like I had to put on a front for her sake.
After that Mum stopped going out to the shops without me and when she went to work she would make sure Dad, Simon, or, Derek were there to keep an eye on me. She said it was because she didn’t want me to get lonely but I knew the real reason. She was worried that if she left me alone I might try and kill myself. I didn’t blame her for worrying because I was worried about that too.
At my next check-up at the Doctors I let my mask slip.
'I can’t go on like this,' I said plainly. I wasn’t upset, my cold stare was completely frozen.
'It won’t be long before you get an appointment,' the doctor said.
'How do you know it won’t be much longer?' I snapped.
'There must be something else we can do doctor, he’s desperate,' Mum panicked.
The Doctor looked concerned too.
'You could pay to see someone privately?' she suggested.
She had got my attention, I broke my stare and looked at Mum, finally, someone had a suggestion, something we could do instead of just waiting.
'I mean it would be expensive,' she followed up.
'But I’m getting paid and I haven’t spent any of my money because I don’t go anywhere,’ I said.
Mum was swept away by my sudden lift in spirits and when we got home from the doctor’s she immediately sat in front of the telephone and started calling her friends.
'I need the name of a good neurologist, thought you might know someone,' she
said.
She must be speaking to one of her paramedic friends, I thought.
Five minutes later Mum was standing in the doorway of my bedroom with the first genuine smile I had seen on her face in months.
'Apparently Mr Llewelyn is the best Neurologist and it just so happens I know his
secretary,' she bragged.
'He can fit us in next week,' Mum said happily.
A sudden pang hit me, this time it wasn’t pain, it was a warm excitement.
'It’s expensive mind, one hundred and thirty pounds for twenty minutes,' she said
seriously.
But I didn’t really take any notice, it didn’t matter how much it was, I had money saved from my unspent wages. If it meant I could finally get some answers I was willing to give everything I had.
'Book it!' I smiled.
Mum’s contagious excitement infected me and for the first time in weeks I didn’t notice the pain.
She disappeared from the doorway in a flash, I heard her padding downstairs and then quickly grabbing the house phone.
'Yep, we want it!' she said, 'thanks again'.
As I listened to Mum slam down the receiver and then fill up the kettle I sank back down into my bed and let out a sigh.
Finally some good news, I thought.
The following week, the week of my appointment with the neurologist, was the beginning of September. The TV was full of adverts flogging everything from pencil cases to school shoes as parents got ready for their children to start the Autumn term after the summer break. Sweltering hot days had started to cool and I had noticed the once purple and pink shrubs in our garden had turned yellow and dry. Just like the children about to start their new school year, I hoped it was the start of a new beginning for me too.
My first appointment with Dr Llewlyn was full of formalities.
'Right Chris, tell me what happened,' he began, a wide friendly smile spread across his face and he opened his hands out to me.
Taking a deep breath I pulled out the familiar script from my mind.
'Well, I rolled down a hill two months ago and I haven’t been the same since….' I
started, looking out of the window of his office as I ran through what had happened.
Bored of telling my story, I distracted my mind by glancing at the line of traffic that was making it’s way past Roath Park Lake in Cardiff. I could just make out the white blur of swans floating on top of the water and the thick trunks of the, now nearly bare, Oak trees. Dr Llewelyn’s private consultation room made a nice change from the grey scenery of hospitals, which, since I had suffered the stroke, had become like a second home to me.
'Let’s get the tests out of the way then,' he said, rubbing his hands together and
grabbing a rubber hammer to tap my knee and check my reflexes.
'Yep,' I sighed.
I prayed that it was the last time I would have to go through those same tests.
'So what are the symptoms you’ve been experiencing?' he asked.
The doctor was looking at me but before I could reply Mum started talking.
'Horrible headaches, they’re awful, so bad that they used to make him speak
funny, that seems to have gone now though, anyway, yeah the headaches are the worst thing…'
'Hang on, hang on, what do you mean it affected his speech?’ He said.
'I just sort of struggled to get my words out, like I had a fat tongue or something,' I
said.
Dr Llewlyn wrote something down.
'Hmmmm,' he said thoughtfully.
Mum continued.
'Well he’s been out of sorts in general, very angry and moody, not like himself at all'.
He looked up again, as if something suddenly registered in his brain, he scribbled on his notepad.
'He’s been exhausted, as you know….' as mum carried on I saw Dr Llewlyn pull something out of my brown card file.
He studied the paper in front of him.
'The C.T scans you’ve had, has anyone talked to you about them?' he asked.
A concerned expression had settled on his face.
'Not really,' I shrugged.
He shook his head. My eyes travelled to the clock above his desk, my twenty minute appointment was nearly over. Dr Llewlyn closed up my file and I began to panic that I wasn’t going to get the answers I needed.
'What do you think then Doctor?' Mum asked.
Whilst waiting for his inevitable, 'I don’t know,' I put my coat on.
'Well,' he started, 'I can see from these scans there’s been a carotid artery dissection'.
'There are two lots of major arteries in your neck which carry blood to your brain
and I think you’ve suffered a tear in the lining of one of those arteries.’
Mum and I looked at each other in disbelief and then quickly turned back to Dr Llewlyn, neither of us wanted to miss a word.
'That’s affected blood getting to the brain, which explains your problems with
speech and movement, we just need to find out wha
t caused it,' he said decisively.
I nodded and looked at Mum, she was nodding too, we nodded at each other in unison, spellbound by the information. Finally, someone was acknowledging all my symptoms, not just the head pain.
'Look, i’m pretty sure I know what it is but I just want to send you for an MRI scan to make sure, we can get you one next week,' he explained whilst glancing at his computer.
I thought back to the weeks I had spent in limbo, the four walls of my bedroom had become my whole world as I was isolated by the pain I was in.
I’m not going mad, there is something wrong with me and soon we will know exactly what it is, I thought.
Momentarily I was swamped with relief until it suddenly dawned on me that I might not like the answers he gave me. What if it is something serious? Life threatening? Maybe it’s best if I don’t know.
I went home and waited anxiously for the MRI scan, I was relieved when the day of the appointment finally came around, I knew It meant I was one step closer to the truth.
'This machine will use magnetic fields and radio waves to give us a really clear idea of what it looks like inside your body,' a man wearing glasses explained routinely.
'We need you to stay as still as possible, if you move we might have to start
again,' he warned, before placing a plastic white cage over my head.
'This will help you stay in place.’
The MRI machine made me feel like a cat stuck in one of those pet carrier boxes.
The clock and door in front of me were broken up with the white, grid-like, lines of the metal cage. My sweaty fingers clasped the button I had been given to hold.
'Just press the button it if you start to feel claustrophobic and we will get you
straight out,' the voice explained, 'and remember, keep calm and don’t move'.
Can I press it now? I want to get out now, I thought.
But instead I gulped down my fear and remembered the instructions then the plastic slab I was laying on started to recede into the huge white machine.
As my body rolled back it reminded me of when my friend had been cremated, the lush red curtains had closed around her coffin and as it slowly edged out of sight.
Within minutes loud shuddering noises rang out around me, like I was being photographed by dozens of paparazzi. It felt cramped.
My mind suddenly flashed back to being in a lift with my Nan when I was ten. She had taken me to a discount clothes shop and as usual, when we approached the sprawling escalator to take us upstairs, Nan had gripped my hand.
'Ooh I think we should take the lift,' she had suggested.
Nan never took the escalator, she was scared of them. We got in the lift, pressed the number two button and the lift raised and then came to a juddering halt. The silver doors in front of us stayed closed, I looked up at Nan and she frowned back at me.
'Nothing to worry about I’m sure,' she said, her voice was very clearly worried.
With time on my hands I took in my surroundings, our reflections danced in front of me in the huge mirror, the shop logo decorated the wooden handrail. Nan scanned the lift buttons and then repeatedly jabbed the HELP button.
'Everything is going to be fine,' she had recited every five minutes, her tone
getting higher each time.
After thirty minutes I was frustrated, there was nowhere to go, we were penned in like animals and with the atmosphere fraught, I felt my first experience of claustrophobia. My hands were clammy, a nervous shake developed in my leg, my face started to sweat and I felt like I had a loud banging drum in my chest. We were let out after an hour and Nan didn’t use the lifts after that, just the escalators.
A whirring noise brought me back from my thoughts, like a spaceship landing, I hovered my finger over the button. Cocooned inside the tunnel of the machine a cool breeze blew across my face, I could still see the lights of the room through the gap at the end. Just keep still, you’ve got to stay in here to find out what’s wrong, I thought, pulling my finger back from the button.
The next week, the day before my 21st birthday, we were back in Dr Llewelyn’s office for the results. I had decided the second £130 consultation fee was a birthday present to myself, it turned out to be the best present I could have got, a diagnosis.
'Hi,' Dr Llewelyn, breezed into the room.
He looked directly at Mum and held the brown file that I knew contained my fate. It had become normal for doctors to speak directly to my mum, bypassing me, she was the one who did all the talking after all. Sometimes, whole conversations would go on around me, as I sat looking on, helplessly aware that I was being referred to like I was an object, like I wasn’t in the room and couldn’t hear them.
'So, let’s get straight to it, we’ve got the results in..' Dr Llewelyn began.
I felt myself nodding furiously, willing him to get to the end of his sentence as quickly as possible.
'It’s as I thought, the MRI scan results are consistent with what we would expect to see in a stroke victim,' he said.
He paused to let the information sink in. A stroke? I thought, the word didn’t mean much to me. It was something elderly people on tv soaps suffered from, people who smoked, or, were unhealthy. How did I get it?
'From the scans we can see that when you twisted your neck it cut off the blood
supply to your brain and this caused a stroke. With no blood pumping around the brain many of your brain cells died and so you experienced some brain damage. That explains why you have been feeling so confused recently. Some of the damage we can see, like the slight droop in your left eyelid but in terms of what’s happened on the inside, we have no way of knowing how much of an effect it’s had on you,' he said.
Dr Llewlyn’s words filled the room and clouded around me, some of them registered, brain damage, brain cells, but I didn’t have them in the right order, I couldn’t sort them into any sentence that made sense. It was too much to take in.
'It explains the loss of mobility down your left side, the confusion, changes in personality and of course the pain you’ve experienced,' he added.
'Right, a stroke, yes, that does explain things,' Mum agreed.
'The good news is your body has already started the healing process, that’s why
some of the physical symptoms have improved,' he said, as I remained silent.
'Now we understand what’s happened we can get you the right medication, give
you some physiotherapy, we know what we are dealing with now,' he smiled, reassuringly.
I still didn’t know quite what to say.
'Can it happen again?' Mum asked.
I turned my head quickly and looked at her disapprovingly, we had just got the diagnosis, I didn’t want any more bad news. Hoping he didn’t answer I focused on his last words. We know what we are dealing with now.
But then Dr Llewlyn cleared his throat, his expression became more serious.
'Yes, potentially, he could suffer from another stroke..' they were talking about me
as if I wasn’t there again.
'We need to make sure Chris looks after himself,' the doctor warned.
'He can’t do anything that will raise his blood pressure too much, so avoid strenuous physical exercise.’
In my peripheral vision I noticed my mum nodding furiously.
'I’ll do that, I’ll make sure he takes his pills, eats properly, don’t worry about that,'
Mum was emotional, you could hear it in her voice.
'If he looks after himself there’s no reason why Chris can’t live a full and normal life,' Dr Llewlyn said, his voice was upbeat again.
When we left the car park Mum turned the radio up and started singing along happily to the crackled song blaring out. She seemed relieved, her mood lifted. For the first time I realised that my illness had affected her almost as much as me.
'As soon as you’ve got the new pills you’ll feel better then you can go back to
work, see your friends,' Mum was ta
lking to herself more than me.
Her enthusiasm was infectious, as we left the hospital behind and made our way home, I stayed in stunned silence. It’s over, we can go back to normal, I thought, breathing a loud and heavy sigh of relief.
Chapter Nine: How Can I Be Myself?
'I just can’t understand how it wasn’t obvious,' I said.
I threw the leaflet back down on the table in front of Mum, she looked up and then to either side of her at the other people in the waiting room.
'Sshhh,' Mum said, 'people will hear you'.
She looked embarrassed but I didn’t care, I pointed at the section in the leaflet that had me so enraged. It was titled, ‘signs of a stroke’ and clearly listed my symptoms, ‘paralysis, confusion, severe headache unlike anything experienced before, memory loss….’
'I just don’t understand why it took them so long, it’s obvious,' I sneered.
By now, my angry whisper had caught the attention of an older lady opposite us, she was watching me over the top of her glasses.
'People are staring,' Mum whispered, sharply.
Mum had taken me to my physiotherapy appointment that the specialist had arranged, it was supposed to be a good thing, it meant I was on the mend and could go back to work. But the leaflet I read just brought back my frustration at how long my diagnosis had taken.
The more I read about strokes the more obvious it seemed that I had had one, my symptoms were textbook. As I waited to see the physiotherapist my eyes fixed on the last bullet point on the leaflet, ‘stroke victims can suffer from aggression and irritability’. My mind flashed back to all the times I had lost my temper recently. I couldn’t seem to keep a lid on my anger, like a volcano it was always bubbling away under the surface, waiting to blow.
My relationship with Mum felt frayed, I wasn’t sure whether it had always been that way but I had a feeling Mum’s annoyed frown was a new thing
'You aren’t yourself at the moment,' Mum concluded.
'I feel completely myself,' I snapped.