On the 22 September 2013 my life changed forever. I had a stroke...
It was 1am in the morning and everyone in our house was up later than usual. I was sitting in my eldest daughter, Stephanie, room talking to her when she noticed I was answering her very strangely and didn't seem to make sense. I tried to tell her I was fine and she didn't need to worry. At this point my youngest daughter, Anneke, walked into the room to get something. Stephanie was in panic and told Anneke she thought I was having a stroke. Being in a daze I tried to sit up and laugh this off, but this is when the right side of my face started to droop.
Anneke immediately ran to the other side of the house to get my husband, while Stephanie was sitting by me trying to keep me aware of my surroundings. Within minutes my husband and Anneke had carried me to the car. We luckily lived just around the corner from the hospital and it was 4 minutes after this started and I was laying in a hospital bed.
By the time I was at the hospital I didn't know who I was anymore or who anyone around me was. I started crying as they had to undress me as I had vomited all over myself. They kept me stable without starting any scans of anything till all the forms were completed. This took roughly 10 minutes. After the forms were done I went for a brain scan and they told my family a vein inside my head had burst and I basically and no chance of surviving this as if they tried surgery I would immediately bleed out.
Within the next 2 hours I was moved to a different hospital with more qualified doctors. They set me up in ICU and by this time I was in a coma. The nurses told my family they could go home and would be immediately called if anything changes.
By 8am my family was back by my bed side and telling me everything will be okay and I would wake up from this coma 100% again. The doctor spoke to my family and told them I had the most dangerous type of stroke there is. This is a stroke which survival is very scares as it is caused by a burst vein in middle back part of the brain. Normally they would burn this vein shut, but for me this wasn't possible because of the location of the burst vein. The good news was if I do manage to survive this stroke I could recover fully and do everything I use to do.
On day 2 my doctor noticed my brain wasn't draining fluid by itself anymore and I had to go in immediately for a operation to get a drain pipe inserted into my brain. I had my husband, daughters, my sister and her daughter all waiting in the waiting room for me hoping nothing goes wrong. The drain pipe stayed in for a week and was then removed. I was doing fine for about 2 days when my brain stopped doing the draining work again. My breathing dropped so low I had to be attached to a machine for that. The drain tube was inserted again. After this I started to wake up and the doctors decided to rather put me in a medically induced coma.
Another week passed and I was breathing on my own. The draining tube was removed and I was improving against all odds. I brought out of my coma, but I couldn't talk....I couldn't walk.....I didn't know who anyone was except for my husband and my sister. It brightened my entire day when they visited me and broke my heart when they had to leave. I remember being told for the entire month I was in ICU my husband never went to work and my sister would come visit me directly after work. My daughters were by my side the entire day with my husband and only left around 10pm at night when the nurses kicked them out.
My husband bought me a mp3 player and put love songs on it as well as some brain exercises . The nurses played it for me the whole time when my family couldn't be there. My daughters kept telling me stories of who I was and where I am from and everything. The doctors said I survived because of my family's love for me.
After my month in ICU I was moved to general ward and stayed there for another week or so. At this point I still couldn't really talk, just swear like a sailor. I started to walk with two people holding me up, but could only do like 5 steps. I was on a soft diet and needed to be fed.
After general ward I was moved to a rehab were I stayed another month. Oh the stories I could tell about this place, but that I will leave for part two of this blog post. The journey to recovery from a stroke can take years so please never give up. Take it a day at a time.
Love and Light
Annelie Jordaan
