#brainhaemorrhage

[plunes-healthcare]

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[samuelshoesmith]

I felt euphoric. On 5th August, it was my first trying to cycle since the brain haemorrhage back on July 20th. It felt so wonderful to be back cycling. Right side issues. Balance hard. Small steps #cycling #bicycle #brainhaemorrhage #stroke (at Wellingborough, Northamptonshire) https://www.instagram.com/p/B06Ddm3Jqld/?igshid=1g2mblib1je1x

[samuelshoesmith]

Yesterday for the first time since the 20th July I rode my bicycle. It was such a strange feeling. You don't think about balance until it is messed up. I am so happy. Right side coordination is poor but it must recover! 📸 Thank you so much to @vishalbhudia94 for coming down and helping me get back cycling and also for taking some beautiful photos and a video. #bicycle #cycling #backinthebicycle #brainhaemorrhage #stroke (at Wellingborough, Northamptonshire) https://www.instagram.com/p/B00Phrlpnst/?igshid=1sbmm8cl6hepn

[samuelshoesmith]

Yesterday for the first time since the 20th July, I rode my bicycle. It was such a strange feeling. You don't think about balance until it is messed up. Right side coordination is poor. Something that was so normal was quite a challenge. Watch the video until the end. Lol. 📸 Thank you so much to @vishalbhudia94 for coming round to help and for taking these beautiful photos and video. #bicycle #bike #brainhaemorrhage #stroke #gettingbackonthesaddle (at Wellingborough, Northamptonshire) https://www.instagram.com/p/B00NVT5J3lf/?igshid=1mz6kojgxtdw6

[samuelshoesmith]

Today is the 10th anniversary of my brain haemorrhage.  Around this time, one decade ago, at the age of 15, I had a bleed on the brain. #brainhaemorrhage #avm #arteriovenousmalformation

[allstarsneeddarkness-blog]

Bright Lights.

I was just getting into bed when it happened.

I’ve never been hit across the back of the head with a baseball bat, but I imagine I know what it feels like now. 

I remember a bang, a blinding white light, high-pitched ringing in my ears, and then the pain. I can’t describe it. A sharp, stabbing pain that quickly spread from behind my eyes, across the back of my head, down into my neck and shoulders, and everything went cold. And then I couldn’t see anything properly, and then I couldn’t stand, and then everything just sort of faded to black.

That was Friday night. It wasn’t until Sunday afternoon that I finally admitted something was seriously wrong and I should probably go to the hospital. I won’t bore you with details of waiting rooms, doctors and nurses, or lying on an unused bed in the middle of a dark corridor because by this point I couldn't even hold my own head up and any sort of light was too bright. To cut a long and somewhat blurry story short, the next day they sent me for a CT scan. Later on, the first of many doctors appeared at my bed, and started using scary words like “aneurysm” and “bleeding” and other words that are only ever said to other people.

I remember lying on my back on a trolley, being wheeled through the hospital corridors and into an ambulance. The corridor lights were too bright and everything was moving past too quickly, so I closed my eyes and hummed the theme tune from “Casualty”.

I just read this back, and it seems pretty superficial. I don’t want anyone to think I wasn’t scared, or that I didn’t think about what was happening to me. I was terrified. I thought I was going to die. But I can’t explain it; no-one has ever asked me what it was like, or what was going through my mind. Maybe one day I’ll sit down and think about it, and find the words to explain properly. But I’d be lying if I said I remembered it all clearly; sometimes I wonder if I remember anything at all, or if I just imagine how I would have felt, and use those assumptions to fill in the gaps. Like when someone shows you an old photograph, and you say “Oh, I remember that!” But you don’t, not really.

It’s getting late now, and I get tired easily. So that’s all for tonight.

[allstarsneeddarkness-blog]

In the Beginning...

They say you shouldn’t tell a story until it’s over, and I’m not sure this one is. I’m not even sure when it began, unless it was the day I was born with a weakness in my brain; a weakness that would later allow an aneurysm to develop and burst. I suppose none of us are born perfect.

But I suppose the real story begins on a day 27 years later; Friday 10th October, 2014 - the day I suffered from a horrible brain haemorrhage, and everything changed.

I’ll be using this blog to share my story. I want to write it all down ‘cos maybe one day I forget, and the memory of it will exist only in a dark place that I don’t want to visit. Or maybe my family and friends want answers to the questions they’re too scared to ask, or complete strangers want answers to ones they don’t know how to. Or maybe someone else who is going through their own recovery will read my story, and realise that they aren’t alone; I get it. I know what it’s like when the night seems to last forever. I understand.

“Even the darkness nights will end and the sun will rise.”