Some of you will know this story, most of you will not…
At around 2am on Monday 31st October I hear a rustling, there’s movement in my bed that can mean only one of two things.
Either
Our 3-year-old has made his way into our bed
or
I am about to enjoy the spoils of some midnight delight...
(I hope I don’t need to explain that further)
FUN FACT – I was wrong on both accounts. It turns out my wife was actually having a Stroke, the medical kind not the shenanigans kind...
I have been trained in First Aid since I was in my early teens. I have watched the F.A.S.T training video more times than I know what to do with myself. I only ever thought it would be useful whilst at work or caught in public. There is something oddly perverse and macabre at being able to diagnose the love of your life whilst she rolls around in your bed.
Ultimately, I knew what I was dealing with the moment it happened and regardless of the time of the day I do not think I can ever un-live the look on Maxine’s face when she could not understand what was going on.
The shock, the terror, the abject fear and the unknown made for the worst combo ever, she could barely move and what movements she could make were fully uncontrolled.
After the Ambulance call before 3:00am, I realised that we would need to be ready once the medics arrived. I dressed Max, I reassured her, even though she didn’t understand. I kept peering out of the window of the bedroom, hoping beyond hope that the Ambulance would arrive. It was the longest 43 minutes of my life.
I deliberately removed her jewellery, for no other reason that I thought it would need to be done before any kind of scan took place and I knew it could slow the process. Taking off her wedding ring was heart breaking and my hands shook with the adrenaline and panic.
All the way through this she could not lie still, her confusion and horror were obvious but her inability to speak meant that on a couple of occasions I had prevent her from almost falling out of bed and we spent what felt like hours with her lying in between my legs in a berthing pose, unintelligibly ranting.
Finally, after what felt like a life time, the ambulance arrives. I had forgotten to lock the dog in her crate that evening. She wakes up and starts barking, fortunately our son is possessed of such deep sleep that the hound of hell that is Twiglet, the (not-so) miniature dachshund didn’t wake him.
The next 15 minutes were observations, tests and information gathering from the medics, who were amazing. The senior paramedic makes a call and the part that sticks with me is this…
“I have a 37-year-old female, presenting FAST”
A bloody stroke, and this is when being a know-it-all really does not help.
“I told you so”
Is the least helpful thing my internal monologue has come up with ever.
She’s put into the Evac chair to go down the stairs, the team afford me a final good bye in the ambulance before they go.
Max manages the only words that will ever matter to me,
“I AM coming back, I promise.”
And then she is gone – the ambulance and its blue lights disappear into the night and I am alone in the house at 4am.
Fortunately for me, she keeps her promise.
I cry, for minutes, uncontrollably. I try 3 people on the phone, the 4th picks up. She thinks it’s a hilarious drunk call and I explain how I think my wife might be having a Stroke and I don’t know if she will ever come home.
I got to put her wedding ring back on her finger 9 days later in a Stroke Ward in High Wycombe and it was one of the best moments of our lives.
The next 24 months from that point lead us to this moment – almost exactly 2 years to the day and my extraordinary and beautiful wife is off to work for the first time since her Stroke.
Life is not the same for any of us but least of all her. She has had to battle back from partial paralysis, aphasia, facial paralysis, memory loss, fatigue, headaches among a litany of other things and yet; last week, she returned to work and I couldn’t be prouder.
Because the way you recover from something as vicious as a Stroke is measured not only in physical milestones but also in the mental milestones you set yourself.
I am in awe of her, she has done something that many do not, she has put herself back together and come back to prove that she can do it and that anything is possible.
What a fucking hero!
Love you Maxi.
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