The neuro wrote to my GP from the appointment last week. Sometimes it’s easier just to show you:
(Personal details blocked out, sorry!)
“Recanalisation” means the artery having blood flowing through it again. In my case, the clot still appears to be there. Good job he explained that was the case and that’s what the aspirin is for. Guess I’d better start taking it more diligently then!
Got a really odd call from the Cadiss trial (I think…) the other evening.
The phone rang and it was someone saying they were from a trial I was on. I supplied the name of it before I clocked that was kind of an odd thing to do. I know, I’m so suspicious..!
Seriously though, it was such an odd call that I was checking the trial website while I was on the phone to make sure the name he gave me was a name on the trial and… well, normally a researcher calls me. This guy was the Professor who heads up the whole thing? Spare time on his hands of an evening obviously……..
Hey ho. Got my next neurology appointment through – don’t have to see them now until 8 November 2012 unless there’s an issue. And as promised they moved me onto the new clinic. But it’s still held in the exact same place. The oddest place. Where?
The stroke clinic is held in the Limb Fitting Centre. Yeah. The limb fitting centre. First time I went there the receptionist looked at me with a, ‘Yep, you’re in the right place and we don’t know why either. You may keep your limbs and take a seat’.
Phew.
Sorry it’s taken a few days for me to get around to this update. You know how life gets busy…
Here’s the answers to my questions, in no particular order, and what happens next.
(1) Aspirin. The 75mg a day of baby aspirin has to continue for two reasons. First, the clot is still there in my vertebral artery (in the back of my neck). The aspirin prevents it doing any more damage. Second, there is the minuscule chance that there is some kind of congenital weakness there – he made it sound more like winning the euromillions type odds than getting struck by boring old lightening, though the figure of 5% chances of reoccurrence on a tear has been bandied around the VAD group recently. In any case a baby aspirin would prevent this doing much harm so it would make sense to continue that even if the clot ever clears itself.
Hi there, this is a quick announcement.
I love WordPress, and I’m very grateful to them for hosting AfterStrokeParty for free at it’s previous home. They’ve been generally fantastic. In fact, I’m going to keep using their brilliant, free software. But…
Lots to say after yesterday, but I’ll write it up and post it before the weekend.
In the meantime, this appeared on the Young Stroke Survivors facebook page this morning:
Tomorrow I’m seeing the neuro at the stroke clinic at Hospital Number 2. You’ll remember he stole me back from Hospital Number 3, in possibly ego-related act for which I was grateful. I haven’t seen him, or any other stroke related doctors, in six months.
I suspect that he’ll probably discharge me permanently tomorrow. There’s a possibility he’ll want another MRI or CT I suppose, but my instinct says he’ll let me go after tomorrow. Unless there are persistent issues, there’s often nothing new to tell after a year. And it’s been just over a year now. It feels like a very long time ago… and what an interesting year it has been on many fronts.
It’s got me thinking about questions I want to ask him, as well as things that have changed in the past year. Let’s take each in turn.
I do dates. You may have noticed.
I remember it’s a week since, or a month since, or a year since. And not just about the stroke, but about EVERYTHING. I’m sure it’s very annoying for people who don’t. But I do. You probably noticed.
On October 29th it’s World Stroke Day.
Maybe you could mark this one too?
This time last year I’d just gotten back from an Island where I’d been househunting.
I’d narrowed it down to a choice between a little cottage with no parking or a flat with no garden. I had decided on the house right up until the end of the day when I realised the ‘lock-up-and-leave-ability’ of the flat made it more suitable.
Tomorrow last year, which was a Monday, all this started. Not really sure how I feel about that. Almost everything has changed since that time; job, relationship, everything.
As some of you know, since my first day blogging from the hospital I’ve had a thing about ‘hospital kit’ lists.
Right. Ages ago I said to the Facebook Young Stroke Survivors Group that I’d put up a resources page collating a lot of what’s been said about what was useful. I also asked them for things that they found useful. They’re on the new resources page – look up, see the tab?
