Deficits

Deficits

If you live in the UK and pay a small amount of attention to the news you have probably heard the word “Deficit” quite a lot recently as our overlords begin to crank up the rhetoric with the general election campaigning beginning in earnest.

Above is an artists impression of David Cameron when he's not wearing his fleshy man skin

Today's post concerns the deficits I have suffered since that fateful day way back in August, which already feels like a confusing mixture of a lifetime ago and yesterday, probably because its burnt into my mind much like Ryan Giggs beautiful run against Arsenal in 1999.

As I have previously explained, the initial weeks after my bleed are to me mostly lost in the mists of time! Its kinda like a drunk night out in the sense that I know something major happened but I have no memory of it, But in a sense I do know what happened, obviously because my memory has massively improved from its all time low of 30 seconds, but also because my bleed left me with deficits

The word Deficit is defined as:

The amount by which expenses exceed income or costs outstrip revenues. Deficit essentially refers to the difference between cash inflows and outflows. It is generally prefixed by another term to refer to a specific situation - trade deficit or budget deficit, for example. Deficit is the opposite of "surplus" and is synonymous with shortfall or loss.

The last sentence is the most relevant part really, Deficit is the opposite of "surplus" and is synonymous with shortfall or loss.

The medical terminology for my bleed is described as a “Left Occipital Arterio Venous Aneurysm intercranial haemorrhage" Catchy huh?

Which in non medical speech means I suffered a large bleed in the Occipital region of the brain

As the below image shows the occipital region primarily controls vision but I assume because my bleed was so large it also effected other regions too!

Those other areas for me were my Temporal lobe (I could not talk at one point, 30 second memory, was at least 15.8% more bastard) and my Cerebellum (rubbish balance, co-ordination) and my Parietal lobe (also not being able to talk, lack of sensation, could not read!)

For the most part a lot of these issues have mostly cleared up, but some have not, these I describe as my deficits

Left side

Lack of spatial awareness of my left sided limbs: This is probably the most difficult to describe and understand, its not that I have not got sensation in my left side, I do (luckily!) but its like my left side is no longer a part of me anymore. When I am carrying things in my left hand, I can feel them there but I have to visually check its still there, otherwise it feels like in my brain that its no longer in my hand, its similar for my leg and walking, it kinda feels like my leg is not there sometimes

The Doctor at the hospital explained it to me as you have Neuron receptors in your limbs which send a signal to your brain as to where your limb is in relation to space, for the most part for me on my left side this signal is not being received or is not being understood.

Tiredness:

As I am sure a lot of stroke/AVM survivors understand, the tiredness aspect post bleed is probably the worst after effect from the incident. Its not like missing a good nights sleep (which I could do quite regularly for work!) but its like being in a state of constant zero energy! It has improved a bit since my bleed but its still nowhere like I was pre-bleed, where I could make it through a busy 10-12 hour shift on no sleep with a lot of coffee and energy drinks! Initially on my release from hospital I could do very little other than occasionally sleep and sit on the sofa a lot! I literally could not muster the energy to even walk to the shop, which when I did would wipe me out for the rest of the day! It is/was both a physical and mental ordeal, where I could not physically nor mentally have the energy to do things, even simple things like trying to concentrate to watch a TV show or football would prove to be too mentally taxing to the point of needing to either stop or go nap! I am pleased to say it has slowly improved, I can now make it to the shop, I can now watch a full 90 minutes of football and I am working to improve my overall fitness to hopefully one day make a full return to work! Speaking to a lot of other survivors it does slowly improve over the years (which I am hopeful for!)

Cognition

This is probably the most emotionally challenging deficit for me, It was not like I was a future Physicist in the making

The above photo is not me, i repeat not me! Its Professor Brian Cox!

but I was a fairly bright bloke more than capable of running shifts in a busy pub and doing a pretty good job of it too! But my bleed really affected my cognitive ability! Simple sums/problems would bewilder me, even adding up products in a shop and having a general idea of what it would come to was too much! It for a long time really upset me, I did some cognitive rehab work in The Royal , but I found it far too distressful to do mainly because I had too much expectation of what my brain should be able to do still! In my mind I was very much like “I went to university and did some pretty tough maths/physics there and now I can't add up 99p and 50p?”

And I found concentrating really bloody hard!

But over time I have learnt to come to terms with the fact that I was/I am cognitively impaired, it was not my fault what happened and now I just gotta make the best out of a bad hand! I think for a long time it was mostly a trust issue, I felt I could no longer trust my brain was giving me the right answers, I still have that to an extent but I no longer let it bother me too much. If I am wrong, I am wrong! There are much bigger issues to concern myself with. I swallow my pride and get help where I need it (mostly from my best mate/life partner Benjamin) and just get along with things!

Headaches/Back pain

I still get a lot of headaches and back pain but way less than what I used to do which initially was pretty much all day long! It used to be pretty fearful for me, especially as an indicator of a bleed is a big bloody headache! But since my GP upgraded me from the frankly useless Paracetamol (the Nick Clegg of the painkiller world) to the wondrous Codeine (the Noam Chomsky of painkillers) its a lot more in control! The headaches are down to (so the Docs say) the immense shit-fest (my wording) my brain went under from the bleed and the pressure being slowly being released from the brain as the blood gets reabsorbed back into my body. The back pain mystified me and the docs for a long time, but speaking to other survivors its a common thing, I was in the dark until recently somebody who read my blog explained it to me as this:

“By the way, the back pain you described is from the chemical toxicity of blood as it breaks down and circulates through the cerebral spinal fluid. “

Which makes sense to me!

Until next time, as ever thanks for reading, and a big shout out to everyone who has read this blog/offered encouragement and kind words, you are all bloody diamonds!

Big love x