Portrait: Kyle
I had just returned from holiday when I started to feel really unwell and sick. I now know it was an AVM that had ruptured and I was suffering a bleed on the brain.
A little bit about Kyle
It was 2012, I had a great job with the civil service and had been on holiday in Portugal. Two weeks after getting back around the late summer August Bank Holiday, I started to feel really unwell and sick. I now know it was an AVM which had ruptured and I was suffering a bleed on the brain.
At the time, I couldn’t remember how to use a phone or understand what the numbers meant. I couldn’t get hold of anyone. I still don’t know why I didn’t ring 999. I managed to get hold of a friend who managed to lift me into his car and take me to hospital. He also didn’t ring 999 but none of us knew what was happening.
I ended up having neurosurgery and was in Salford Royal for a while. I then undertook rehab at the Floyd Unit, a specialist recovery unit in Rochdale.
Symptoms that remain
I am lucky in that my speech and mobility appears to be unaffected, but I get tired very easily. People tend to think that because I look ‘normal’ and better, that I am - but I know I’m not. I still can’t work full-time and I can’t really travel without having someone with me as the seizures are a legacy from the AVM. Working with some good doctors, we are altering the medication to try and reduce the seizures in intensity and for them to become less frequent.
My advice to other survivors
I always try and look at the positive side of things. It does get better and I am lucky to have some amazing friends. I set up my own online radio station and have people presenting on it. I have met great people through that. So I’d say no matter what, just keep going as it’s all worth it in the end.
The quote I live by that someone taught me is that you never know someone else’s journey.