Left of Tomorrow Read online

  The clothes came next. It was easy enough to put my left foot in the left leg of the tracksuit, although I had to sit down on the shower chair to do this, as I could not stand on my right foot. Catching the right foot, from whichever distant place it had gone to, was rather difficult. I needed my left hand to feed this lost limb into the right pants leg, and shimmy the garment up my body. With my left side functioning normally I would consider myself properly dressed only to discover that my clothes were at half mast or totally twisted around. A valuable lesson learnt so now I always do a mirror check, what I cannot feel, at least I can see. This works well for the front of me, but without eyes in the back of my head I have had many fashion disasters. It was rather embarrassing to have some one point out to me, when I was at the doctor’s one day that my right heel was not in my shoe. I had been walking around all day not knowing, because I could not feel, that my shoe was not embracing all of my foot. Now I always use my left hand to check around the heel to see if it is in or out of the shoe.

  Sometime later I returned to my bed, dressed and more respectable than just in a hospital gown, but rather exhausted. I had time to look around and see my fellow occupants. I was in the middle range, and much closer to life than some of the others. I had survived the initial assault on my brain, and now I could look forward to improving, I hoped. Opposite me was a young man in his early thirties. He was able to walk and was not paralyzed but seemed unaware of what was going on around him. In the bed next to him was a lovely lady from the country who had collapsed and was now here to be investigated. The doctors had ruled out stroke, but did not know what had caused her blackout or loss of control of her body. The curtains along our side of the room were always drawn around my next door companion, who seemed to be slipping away from life. His family visited in the morning and we were all aware of their grief and sadness.

  The ward itself was rather small and with its six large hospital beds and six chairs for our visitors already crowding the available space, there seemed to be no extra room available for any additional people or equipment, or so I thought.

  Blitz

  Was it only yesterday that I had decided to do some necessary weeding in our garden? It seemed as if it was more like a lifetime than just twenty-four hours away, as so much had changed in such a short time. That day was warm and sunny, more like spring than late winter. And with the Sydney Olympic Games just ahead, we had already started daylight saving. It seemed to me to be the perfect time to be out in the front of our house in the late afternoon sun. As newlyweds we had designed this dream home incorporating all the new and innovative ideas of the time, the early sixties. Wire-cut bricks, satin finished aluminium window frames, the icon of the time, all topped off with a roof any mountain range would be envious of with its many ridges and valleys. Our house had sheltered us all as the family grew and was there in the background when our eldest four daughters each left here on their wedding days.

  I had been inspired to create a masterpiece of design and ingenuity after watching a television garden makeover program. I believed I could transform our neglected front garden into a scenic beauty. My calculations concluded that if this team of six experts took 36 hours to perform their miracle, from wilderness to outdoor elegance, then I could do it also. Here I was on my first hour with only 215 hours to go to achieve my garden of dreams.

  I planned to have a woodland garden making full use of our large mature liquid amber and golden ash tree, with an under storey of plants in many shades of lavender. Azaleas, pelagoniums and hydrangeas would flourish in this area and would be offset by the white carpet roses, blue agapanthus and lavender bushes in the sunnier aspects of the garden. I could already see it in my mind’s eye.

  The family cats were enjoying my company. The tortoise shell female sat majestically in the centre of the lawn for all to see and admire, but not to touch. The male cat pretending to be a fierce lion crept through the jungle of long grasses, pouncing indiscriminately on anything that moved.

  I was enjoying this time in the garden after a bout of flu had laid me low. I pulled out some unwanted plants, with regret, as I usually welcome all that grows in my garden. Seeds dropped by birds have a chance to flourish, but The Great Plan demanded colour coordination and therefore these had to be sacrificed.

  The pile of discards grew higher until I realized my right foot had gone numb. I carefully stepped out of the melee of weeds onto the path to inspect the damage. Once there I discovered I was in more trouble than I had thought. This was not just a simple pins and needles attack, perhaps caused by my awkward position in the garden bed. The whole of my right side was going numb. From the top of my head to the tip of my toes, I was losing all feeling.

  I suspected I was having a stroke and wondered how much damage would occur. The doctors treating my father for a stroke, some years earlier, had stressed how important it was to get medical attention immediately. I knew that early treatment could reduce the amount of damage done, so I had to get to a hospital with its own dedicated stroke unit at once.

  It was a long walk or stagger back to the front steps of our house, and a drunken climb up the steps. I had to use the wall of the house to support me as I struggled with an unwilling and increasing useless right side. At last I came to the door, and tripping over the top step reached help.

  So as calmly as I could, given the circumstances, I told my husband, Graham, that I was unwell and needed to be driven to the hospital immediately. Graham’s response to my announcement was initially one of scepticism. From his Country Fire Authority, CFA, training he had learnt that if the patient was conscious, breathing and not bleeding, everything was all right, and as far as he could see I fitted all three criteria.

  Alli our youngest daughter came to the front door asking if I was okay. I found it very hard to admit that I was not all right, something was very wrong, and I needed her help to walk to the car and for her assistance at the end of our journey. She commented that I looked as if I had just returned from the dentist. The right side of my face did not move when I spoke, my mouth drooped on the right and my speech was slurred. That was exactly how it felt – like a giant Novacaine injection was taking over half my body and making it numb and devoid of all feeling. Graham quickly recognized that something very serious was happening and a few minutes later we were in the car and on our way.

  It was very hard not to panic, but I kept concentrating on the thought that stress would raise my blood pressure, thus increasing the flow of blood to my head and hence more damage could occur to my brain. If only I could remain calm I would help myself and perhaps reduce the severity of the stroke until we obtained professional help. That was indeed a difficult task to perform, when thoughts of losing the use of my right side, my speech being seriously affected, or the fact that I might die, were all whirling around inside my head.

  In Ecclesiastes Chapter 3, it tells us:

  ‘To everything is a season And a time to every purpose under heaven A time to be born, and a time to die...’

  We had used this very reading at my father’s memorial service four weeks earlier. And although I could accept that he, at ninety-three years of age having done all he had wanted to, had time to reflect on his life and events and was ready to go, I was not. I still had too much to do. So many paths yet to tread, and more lessons to learn. It would not be fair if I did indeed meet my Maker today. I would certainly be protesting violently and persuasively to the powers that be that they were mistaken.

  Waterloo

  It seemed a lifetime before we reached the hospital, yet at the same time it was as if time had stopped. I felt I was in that vague area beyond time and place. We staggered in through the casualty door, Alli supporting a very unsteady me and arrived at the waiting room. Rows of seats were placed in front of the TV which was delivering the evening news. Half of the seats were occupied by people of various ages and all with the same strained faces. Whilst a mother hushed the crying baby on her lap, we moved slowly towards the queue in
front of the triage nurse and her desk.

  We discovered, later from our dictionary, why the word triage is used. It originated during the Napoleonic wars by Napoleon Bonaparte himself and was the system used for sorting out the casualties at the battle front according to the urgency of the treatment required.

  The three categories were as follows:

  1. Able to be treated and sent back to wage war against the English

  2. Able to be treated, but not well enough to be returned to the Front

  3. No treatment available, soldier left to die

  Nowadays in hospitals it is not quite so drastic or callous. What a wonderful job the triage nurse does. She must extract from nervous or panic-stricken patients, their names, addresses and a summary of the events that occurred. She exuded calm and patience. Yet was keenly alert to what was said and to what clinically was being presented to her. She was responsible for making a judgement on the urgency for treatment for each patient, and then notifying the relevant professionals.

  Soon it was my turn and I struggled to sit on the chair in front of the desk. I quickly realised that my brain had already eliminated my right side, and as far as it was concerned the centre of my body was now half way across my left side. My poor right side missed the seat and I nearly landed on the floor. Many bruises later I solved this problem. Backing into a chair, I use my left hand to touch the left edge of the seat. As I sit down I make sure my left leg touches my left hand, thus ensuring there is enough room on the seat for my non-existent right side. This works very well unless it is a tiny child’s seat or a very large chair, in which case there is plenty of room for someone else to share. However, all that came later. Right now I was a raw novice.

  The triage nurse took my particulars and assured me that I would not have long to wait, and in no time my name was called ahead of all the others patiently waiting. After a CT, then many neurological tests by various staff members it was pronounced that yes, I had experienced a stroke. It was a fairly small but significant bleed in the left thalamus, an area of the midbrain. The thalamus is a relay station with bundles of nerves passing information from the brain stem to the other parts of the brain. However, this is the area that controls sensory perception for the whole of my right side and this was what was now missing. Although nothing appeared to have deteriorated since the first numbing incident, we were informed that I was to be admitted for observation.

  My husband telephoned our daughter who is a nursing sister, and she did a ring around to inform the family. Half an hour later our eldest girl appeared at the door of the cubicle. She lived close by and had come to assess the damage and to discover if I was still the mum she knew. Then the phone rang hot again as this information was relayed back along the family grapevine. She is going to be OK, we can all breathe easy again.

  An MRI, Magnetic Resonance Imaging, was ordered for me as the CT had not shown any evidence of a stroke. It was important to know if a bleed or clot had occurred so the appropriate treatment could be prescribed. If it was a clot, drugs could be given to thin the blood, disperse the blockage and stop the damage. If there had been a serious bleed, surgery would be required to prevent any more damage to the brain.

  The MRI is a totally different experience to a normal X-ray or CT. Technically it uses a large magnet and not an X-ray tube as in a CT. An electric current is passed through the magnet to produce images of the soft tissues of the brain. For those suffering from even the slightest feelings of claustrophobia it takes a lot of self-control and self-discipline to undergo this test. I was placed on the narrow bed, my head supported by a frame and then a plastic helmet, like the face guard the catcher on a baseball team wears, was placed over my head and face. At this point I decided to shut my eyes and kept them shut for the next thirty minutes or so until the procedure was completed and the helmet removed.

  I heard the switch pressed and the bed I was on slid slowly into the large housing that filled half the room. My shoulders bumped the inside walls as I moved through the narrow opening, until my head and shoulders were completely within the innards of the machine. Once the procedure began the sounds emanating around my head were loud, sharp and strident. To prevent claustrophobia, cool air is blown across one’s face from a small fan within the depths of the machine. I used this breeze to create an image in my mind of being on a mountaintop in Switzerland, feeling the alpine breeze blowing on my face. I imagined I could still hear the jingle

  of the cow bells sounding in the valley below, and drifting up the mountain side to where I sat, memories of a visit to Stanserhorn and Switzerland some years earlier.

  I kept this image all the time and could retrace in my mind’s eye our ragged departure from the tourist bus. We climbed aboard the small quaint red carriages of the funicular railway system. Each little carriage was resplendent with its wrought iron embellishments and yellow and red striped curtains at every window. We disembarked further up the mountain. Then we were escorted into the cable car. We swayed out over the valley as we climbed higher and higher, until we reached the peak of Stanserhorn and terra firma. Up here in the rarefied air the view was breathtaking as we gazed across at the other mountains in the range, their peaks disappearing into the high clouds. I followed a small path away from the activity and stood silently as I heard the music of the cow bells funneling up from below on the summer breeze:-

  ‘Down in the valley, valley so low Hang your head over hear the winds blow.’

  I had no need to consider that I was trapped in a very small confined space. Where I was in my mind’s eye was open and spacious. I do not know to this day what the inside of the MRI machine looked like. My snow covered alps kept me still and reduced the anxiety within me that would have otherwise been overwhelming.

  On leaving school I had worked at Peter MacCallum Cancer Institute in Melbourne, as a Therapy Radiographer and had embraced the challenge of working with people who were living with cancer by treating them with radiotherapy. I had met so many wonderful people whose attitude to life and to death had a profound effect on me. Seeing their courage and determination as they faced the spectre of death humbled me. Many became good friends with me as I shared their experiences each day as they came for the treatment.

  I had finished full time employment when my first child was due and threw myself wholeheartedly into my new vocation, parenting. Exploring, enjoying, learning as each new child came along kept me busy and interested in life. Raising four daughters in five and a half years was an exciting challenge. I was able to see beyond the servicing and maintaining of the family, to the sheer joy of being with the children and experiencing each one develop into a unique person. Then a decade later, I had the opportunity to enjoy again the experience of a new baby daughter. How blessed we were with five healthy children, to watch enthusiastically as they grew and followed their chosen paths in life

  So I knew about X-ray Departments and hospital procedures, however, mainly from the other side of the sheets. I had been the one handing out the treatment, not the one receiving it In 1988 I was invited back to Peter MacCallum Cancer Institute in Melbourne to retrain and work again as a Therapy Radiographer, my chosen career until the growing family had interrupted its progress. It was wonderful to be back in my old haunts again and I felt in no time that I had scarcely left the place. There was plenty I could do to assist our clients. It was only after an accident at work and subsequent neck surgery that I could see my time at Peter Mac was limited. Two years later I regretfully accepted a redundancy package. I hated to leave, but health wise I was not improving. I had to acknowledge that the longer I stayed, the more stressed I became and the less able I was to cope with the pressure of the work.

  This medical background gave me a good knowledge of hospital procedures, medical terms and even more importantly the interaction between medical staff and the patients. Positive and respectful attitudes by the professionals to their clients, treating them as equals rather than victims was high on my list of how every patient sho
uld expect to be treated.

  After the MRI procedure was completed, I was returned to the casualty cubicle where I had taken up residence for the last five hours. The orderly who wheeled me back told me the hospital was full and had been on ambulance by-pass for some two hours that night. We were then escorted to the stroke ward where the ward staff had been expecting me for several hours, and had kept the last bed for me. This was indeed evidence of the Triage nurse’s accurate diagnosis of my condition earlier in the night.

  Testing time

  The bed I was assigned to was close to the door and had a barrage of electronic and automatic measuring equipment on the wall behind it. My friendly male nurse explained that I was to be patched into and attached to all this electronic wizardry. This would make it easier to monitor my vital statistics throughout the night without disturbing the sleep of my fellow roommates. Oxygen saturation levels, blood pressure readouts and an electrocardiogram were measured continuously and I had the opportunity to follow the results on the monitor screen.

  Every thirty minutes I would receive a cheery visit from my nurse, who would carry out neurological test on my eyes, arms and legs. He would also ask a series of seemingly unimportant, but highly relevant questions:

  ‘What is your name? What is today’s date? Where are you? Do you know what has happened?’

  All these to discover if the bleed in my brain had continued and more damage had occurred in those parts of the brain that affected thought processes or memory. As the long night ticked away it was very reassuring to know that I could still speak, think, remember and was aware of my surroundings; fully functional except for a recalcitrant right side. I became more confident that I was going to survive and my answers to his questions became longer and more involved. No longer a simple ‘in hospital’ answer to where I was, now it was more like an essay. We shared many laughs as the male nurse realised I was adding one more phrase to every answer at each review.