If you’re reading this, you probably already know that I’m currently residing in Harefield Hospital following a ruptured cerebral aneurism on Sunday. Here’s the lowdown:
Sunday night, around 8pm, just as I was returning from my dinner break to put the final touches to the project that was due in on Monday, I developed a sudden, severe headache at the top of my neck where the spine meets my skull. Within minutes, it had spread right around my head, which alternated between feeling like someone was drilling into it and my brain trying to explode out of it.
By 8.30 I couldn’t function and was laid on the bed in pain, feeling sick. By 9.30 I’d started vomiting and wouldn’t stop for the next 24 hours.
After failing to keep down one dose of immunosuppression and knowing the morning dose wouldn’t stay down, either, I headed in to Harefield where they rapidly took a CT of my head and found nothing. To be on the safe side, they then opted for a lumbar puncture (or spinal tap) to see if I had signs of blood in my cerebro-spinal fluid1.
Although clear to the naked eye, tests that returned on Tuesday confirmed the presence of blood and, hence, a probably bleed on the brain.
Since Tuesday, I have been improving progressively and now feel right as rain and ready for action. The doctors, however, disagree.
It’s extremely unusual to have any kind of bleed like this at my age2 and the obvious concern is that a small aneurism (pocket of blood) had a small bleed that caused the initial headache, but could fully rupture at any time and cause more life-threatening consequences.
Personally, I’m not worried about that at all. Harefield have been trying for the last 3 days to get me transferred to a specialist neuro unit with little success, which indicates to me that none of the neurosurgeons who have looked at my file are overly concerned.
That said, it’s obviously far too big a gamble to ignore it all together, so my current state of limbo is being sat in Harefield whiling away the hours and days until a bed becomes available for me at either Charing Cross or, more likely, the John Radcliffe Hospital in Oxford3.
Without going into more medical and boring detail, that’s pretty much the skinny for now. No idea if/when I’ll have access to my laptop again when I’m moved, so there may not be updates as regularly as you may like, but the latest news will be posted on my Twitter feed as it comes in.
Finally, many thanks for all the love and support you’ve all shown over the last couple of days since we first made the news public, it means a lot to me and to K as well, who’s obviously had quite the time of it over the last week and is coping with her typical strength and humour.