Aftershock

This week has been an ordinary week from a working perspective. There is a lot of things going on at work due to a major re-org.

Friday I was sitting down with a good friend an suddenly I got the sensation in dumbness in the left side of my face. I'd tried to take it easy not worrying to much about it but it did not pass and a few hours later I'd called the hospital and they asked me to come by. I was asked to go to the ER at Herlev hospital.

With my records they asked me to stay for observation.

Back to square one.

Blood pressure was measured, blood was tapped for analysis and cardio gram was made and I was scheduled for an CT scan. < The sensation was slowly fading and with the treatment I am already in I was told that if the CT scan came out positive I was allowed to leave the hospital.

They were looking for a potential bleeding and wanted to make sure that was not the case. It turned out fine and I was allowed to go home. Again, there might be several reasons for the sensation but I might have returned to work to early. (I spent the entire Saturday sleeping and had no issue to fall asleep early when I was going to bed.) My entire system is a bit fragile and I spend much time thinking about what happened and why.

Hopefully I won't post here ever again.

Back to the future ... or something like that

Life has a tendency to take turns you didn't see coming for good and bad. We sprint along in ourlifes and plan for future endeavors without considering risk for things that we might not see or realize. Happy go lucky and off we go.

But on the other hand taking risk into account in everything we do would take à whole lot of spontanism out of the equation. Finding the balance is key but yet so hard. Here I am back at hospital with yet another awful experience with a

minor stroke in the brain. This time it was a TIA - "transient cerebral ischaemia" which means that a brief temporary (transient) interruption of the oxygen (ischemia) In the brain (cerebral) occurred.

It started this tuesday at work when I suddenly felt a similar feeling in my left arm and left side on my face a bit worries I called 911 (or the danish similarity) and I was asked to seek attention at the nearest

hospital. But was asked not to take the car. Late Tuesday evening a got examined and I was asked to stay at the hospital for observation and a MR scan next day. Later a was spoiled with a meal that was welcomed. :)

Luckily I got a single room and the hospitality the staff showed me at Glostrup Hospital was stunning. No matter who I met in all departments kindness and helpfulness was always present.

Wednesday was all about waiting for the MR scan but with only one scanner the queue was quite long and the highlight of the day was when my good friend HC came by with a nice cafe latte. HC works at the hospital as an anesthetist and gave me a tour around the house and took me "back stage" which was a nice break.

Then back to my room for more that MR scan.

Late Wednesday I was told that unfortunately there was no slot to get scan but I was scheduled in for a scan at Thursday morning 10.10. In the meantime I was allowed to get home over the night.

Next morning Louise gave me a ride to the hospital and I was quite nervous about the results that would show if there had been anything to be concerned with or not. The sensation in my fingers was gone at this point but still felt something on my left cheek.

The MR scan for you that have not tried this is a very large machine where you get on a carriage that takes you into a tube where the scanning takes place. The exercise takes about 40 minutes and the machine is very noisy and you get earplugs and headphones (with soft oriental music) to block it out.

A little bit like Star Trek.

I tried to fry the operator of the scan for some inside information about the scan he could tell me but he let me know that there was literally hundreds of pictures that needed to analysed by a neurologist for details.

Unfortunately I had to wait another day for the result of the analysis of the scan and today I had a conversation with the doctor. She told me that I had have a stroke (without me noticing) in between the fist one and the TIA I just experienced.

So I am back in square one. Even though I am taking blood thinning treatment my body has a tendency to produce blood cloths. Now I will put through a new examination starting with my heart that might have a small hole in it letting thrombus on its way to my brain.

I am sad & afraid, I hate to post on this page again.

Love

Daniel

Status update

Hi all, thanks for all your notes and text messages, it´s really comforting.

There has been some confusion around my condition and my note at this forum the other day did not add much clarity.

So here goes. First, there is nothing wrong with my heart, I´ll get back to this in a minute.

Last Saturday I got what´s known as an Ischaemic stroke. It is caused by a clot narrowing or blocking blood vessel so that blood cannot reach a particular area of the brain.

This leads to the death of brain cells due to lack of oxygen. Depending on where in the brain this occurs there are different consequences. When this happened I felt dizzy and my left arm and left part of my face was completely numb.

Today these symptoms are almost completely gone.The hospital´s stroke division has trying to find out what made this happened, so a million tests has been made.

To exclude that there is arteriosclerosis :) , (hardening of the arteries) they have done test of the arteries in my neck and examined my hart, but everything turns out normal. This was the result I was describing for you the other day. I have been dismissed from the hospital, but some extended blood analysis will be made and results from this will be presented in a few weeks.

Right now I am getting anticoagulation’s to prevent this from happening again. I am starting to understand the magnitude of what has happened to me and realizes that I have been extremely lucky.

Love,Daniel