My husband made a comment “You have not had a stroke”.  Since then he has felt awful for this .  He is autistic and this was his sense of humour, as he put it.  I came home from the party early to go to bed.  I simply put this down to a migraine and tiredness, and I took some pain relief.  When I woke in the morning I realised I could still not see properly and that my head was pounding.

I was taken to the hospital by my mother, where we sat in A&E for at least 4 hours, to be told by a consultant that I had not cleaned my glasses properly!  I explained that I had, but I was told to go home as it was a migraine.  My saving grace was that the Healthcare Assistant, who was in the same room had recognised me from working in the same hospital.  The consultant then offered to scan me, although he felt it was still not necessary.

The CT scan had indeed showed something, so I was then sent for a MRI which confirmed that I had definitely had an ischemic stroke (right PCA infarct).

The consultant later apologised for not taking me seriously.  I then discovered that I’d had a transient ischemic attack (TIA) in 2015, which was misdiagnosed – and at the time I was informed my MRI was normal.  I was then admitted onto the stroke ward where I was the youngest patient.  Even then it had not registered to me how serious this was, and I was still trying to help/care other patients next to me instead of resting (I think that is the nursing side of me).

I stayed on the stroke ward for almost a week.  For me the hardest part was the convalescing at home for seventeen weeks, when I desperately wanted to be back at work.

A year after the stroke I was diagnosed with a patent foramen ovale (PFO).  A surgery was performed in 2019 and there were not any side effects, and the hole is now closed and I continue to take clopidogrel and statins for security.