Ok so yesterday was one of those days that us as a family won’t forget in a while and not in a good way.
It started Thursday lunchtime where I noticed that the tip of my tongue had gone numb, I wasn’t too concerned as I had read that this could be a symptom of menopause and I am getting to that age so I didn’t worry about it, then yesterday morning at breakfast when we were eating breakfast the numbness had spread to half of my mouth and then Andy noticed that my face had dropped on one side. Of course lots of alarm bells starting going off and calmly I got Andy to call 111 (the non emergency phone number in the UK) I have to say considering all the bad press it has received they were fantastic, they had an ambulance on the way here before Andy had got off the phone to them.
Another blessing was that I had managed to get hold of Ruth at the same time who arrived just after the ambulance to whisk Pete away to the sea side, it was a real relief to me that he was in safe hands and she took him down to the seaside so he didn’t have time to worry.
The paramedics were wonderful as have most paramedics been that I have come across in my time, they are very special people who do a really stressful job. They decided to go in with lights and sirens on as they thought to be on the safe side I needed to been seen immediately and if I went in any other way I wold have a long wait. They had me to queens our local hospital with a specialist stroke unit in 4 mins even with some idiot drivers out there. They were telling me how people just don’t move over any more even with the blue lights and sirens going and they really struggle getting patients to treatment as quickly as they would like.
I was whisked into high risk A+E department and seen straight away by their specialist team plugged into several machines and thankfully very quickly they ruled out stroke as a cause, something about my eyebrows not totally sure but it didn’t really matter and they diagnosed Bells Palsy, although they couldn’t find any immediate cause for it, I did have extremely high blood pressure when I arrived but by the time I left it had returned to a more normal rate so that was put down to the stress of the morning, everything else checked out fine, much to their disappointment I suspect, and was finally discharged in the afternoon with some lovely strong steroids and eye drops and orders to take it easy, I am due a follow up appointment in the neurology department next week.
For those who are unsure what Bell Palsy is this describes it quite well. My face has fallen slightly on the right side and its mostly just causing me tiredness although there are certain words I struggle saying and eating is interesting all of which gets worse as the day goes on the good news is though that they are optimistic that within six months it should right itself.
I do have to say that all the bad press Queens has had over the years, I could not fault the staff yesterday, I still think they are understaffed which I think if you asked the staff on the ground they would say the same and the A+E department is architecturally horrendous obviously designed by someone who has never used and A+E department, but the staff were wonderful including the lovely lady who came round with the tea trolley.
This is not something I would normally put on my blog but it is something that is noticeable and will be effecting my life over the next six months at least and I know how little rumours end up in misinformation and didn’t want people to worry. I am ok just going to take it easy for a while.
Nanowrimo
