Portrait: David
In October 2013, after an evening out, I awoke from sleep with a bad headache and feeling sick. I didn’t know at the time, but I was having a subarachnoid hemorrhage.
Where David’s story starts
It has now been over 11 years since the moment I like to see as the start of my ‘second’ life.
After a couple of days suffering from a non-stop headache and several doctors checking me, one finally sent me to have a scan and lumbar puncture. Very soon after I was in an ambulance en-route to a neuro hospital and, within hours, in an emergency operation to close the aneurysm with coiled wire.
Hospital days and recovery
I spent eight days in the ICU and a few more in a general ward before being sent home. Fortunately, I had already retired, and so I just had to get better. I now know I had survived a one in three chance of not making it to the hospital. I also know the risks didn’t stop when I got there. Like SameYou’s founder, Emelia, I was warned about strokes and those first few days were full of doubts and fears. I was woken throughout the day and night to answer ‘neuro’ questions and failed many of them. It took three days for me to correctly name the hospital. Music through my beloved Bose headphones was distorted. I was blessed to have wonderful one-to-one nurses who helped me during my dark moments.
Physical and emotional recovery
Physical recovery was fairly straightforward as I had no lasting damage. I slowly overcame the weakness in my body, and I even quite liked the slimmer me. My hearing recovered and my Bose headphones sounded great again.
The process of regaining my confidence was slower, and I can see now that I must have been worrying about future prospects and potential repeat hemorrhages happening again.
Like others who have shared their story, I still to this day have trepidations when I get the rare headache and have a loathing of any form of pain relief that would mask it.
How the hemorrhage changed me
I think my personality survived mostly intact, although I became and have stayed much more emotionally sensitive. I cannot watch or speak of a sad story without holding back a tear or two. This is very new to me.
Memory and perspective
My memory today is pretty good given I am 77, but my memory of the days just before and after the brain trauma is scrambled. I remember most of the events but in the wrong order, and also some made up events. The facts are very clear to me, but wrong. Fortunately, my wife was there and I now refer to her for the true story.
In the long period since the illness I have felt increasingly blessed to have escaped reasonably unscathed and to have had so many extra years so far and hopefully a lot more to come.
I do value each day and each holiday and adventure. I preach to others to do the same now and not wait to do it until after you survive a serious illness.
The role of my wife and support network
Throughout all this, my wife has been a rock from the moment she saw me after the operation and managed to pretend not to notice all the tubes, wires and monitors I was attached to. She had very little idea of what to expect other than great advice from nurses and some helpful pamphlets left at the hospital by the excellent Headway charity. I have met a handful of people over these past eleven years or so that are fellow brain hemorrhage survivors, and we all feel blessed.
It is never exactly the same, but each brain injury survivor I meet, especially if they are older than me, makes me feel stronger.
Living my ‘second life’
I am in good health today and consider myself to have come out of the hemorrhage largely intact. I think the impact on me was largely emotional, which has left me a softer, hopefully more empathetic person, who is enjoying my ‘second’ life!