Part 2: A PB and a TIA

I run with a GPS running watch so it is possible to see your real-time speed. I started off at the right pace and continued the run, always checking that I was running below the required time. It didn’t help that there are a few hills on the route, but I just kept pounding away at it. Eventually I neared the last kilometer or so and I found that I was slowing down – I wouldn’t make it. I refused to let it be, I got really angry. I started screaming and swearing at myself at the top of my voice, I was NOT going to let this one go easily. I screamed and screamed until I passed the 5km mark. I had beaten my previous time by about 30 seconds and had broken through a crucial threshold. I immediately (as I often did) lay down on my back on a patch of grass to rest and catch my breath and wait for mom to arrive. I was seriously tired, although my heart-rate was not very high, in fact, if anything it was a little low throughout the run (that hindsight thing again..). A pedestrian walked by and asked if I was OK, I said yes, fine, don’t worry. As he walked by and I started focusing on the task of recovery a strange feeling came over me. I felt as though I was high on some kind of drug and my left arm was moving strangely in front of my face, my hand opening and closing by itself. It didn’t feel like I was in my own body, I felt as if I had been given morphine (I’ve had it before). The only way to really describe it is to say I was really ‘spaced out’. I continued to lie there until a hoot from behind frightened me.

My mom had pulled up and parked on the side of the road to come and fetch me. As she got out and started chatting I tried to get up, but I couldn’t. She thought I was joking and said to stop messing around. I said that I was not joking and that I could not get up. I tried to roll onto my front so that I could try to crawl, but I failed at that also. My mom is a strong woman, but not so strong as to heave 75kg of disabled son into a car by herself. Eventually an old (ish) man stopped and offered to help. I tried my best to move and raise myself up and into the car, but in the end the man had to basically pick me up and put me in the back of the car by himself. Unless you have had experience of moving someone who is unaware of their limbs and also unable to move them, it is difficult to describe how tricky it really is to accomplish something as simple as getting into a car. Hands and legs get stuck and dragged all over the place, and may easily be injured as a result. This was just the first of many occasions where I would have to communicate with those moving me that they needed to take care of each limb and not take for granted that I could move them in the way that was required.

So, off home we went – a 5 minute drive. My mom, brother, and Netti (our domestic worker) somehow managed to get me inside and onto the couch. A limp (heavy) human being is quite difficult to move around! At this stage I wasn’t too concerned, I was sure that I just needed a drink and some air and I would be fine. But as the minutes wore on I realized that the left side of my body – right down to my face- was paralysed. Now, OK, you say, that’s only the left side – you’ve still got the right side to move around or hoist and lift yourself. Unfortunately having the entire one side of your body taken away does not only mean that your one arm and on leg do not work; it also means that all the tiny stabilizer muscles in your back and torso also do not work on the left side, leaving the right side with way too much work to do. The resulting imbalance is quite astounding. I was completely helpless, not able to sit up by myself or take my running shirt or shoes off. 

We agreed that we should probably go to the hospital, so 20 minutes later I was waiting in casualty (in a wheelchair) for a doctor to see me. The less said about the doctor that saw me the better –he was a useless person. After around four hours of waiting I eventually got taken to a ward. In the meantime a terrible headache had been developing. I felt seriously bad and now was a little concerned that things were not going too well with me. I was in bed, really extremely tired, with a headache that felt like it was going to explode my head, and the left side of my body completely limp (but I had most sensation strangely enough). I told the nurses that I had a terrible headache and asked for something to ease the pain –they refused. It was at this point that I texted my loved ones that I would love them forever. It might sound overly dramatic now, but I thought that this might be the last time I close my eyes. I thought that there was a real possibility that this was ultimately the way that I would leave this world for the next. It’s an amazingly strange feeling; I wasn’t panicky or afraid, I seemed resigned to the fact that this was it -I was calm. Either way, I just wanted to close my eyes and drift away simply to get away from the headache that was overwhelmingly painful and disorientating.

The morning brought with it some hope. I woke up to discover that I could move the toes on my left foot and that the left side of my body seemed to have more movement than when I arrived in casualty. I was even able to limp around through putting most of my weight on my right leg and using the left as a stabilizer of sorts, but I was very unsteady and weak. I was though pretty happy to be alive. The nurses didn’t really see or care to see the significance of my moving toe and my ‘recovery’ from the previous evening. The day was spent waiting for specialist doctors (the REALLY clever ones who have to study extra) to come and see me. Eventually I was released to go home, with a view to doing further tests on the Monday (this was now Friday). Information at this point was still sketchy with doctors and their knowledge hard to come by. Anyway, somewhere along the line we found out that I had had a stroke, tests on Monday would yield more information. I was sent home with a little electronic box with small cables stuck with patches onto my chest and instructed to leave them on for the weekend so that some information might be gleaned from the readings on Monday. At this point I still hoped to go to Australia for the race – we had booked everything already.

On Sunday morning I had a bath with the help of Nicole, my long-time girlfriend. While limping from the bathroom to my bedroom I collapsed and was unable to move or speak. The family moved me into my room onto my bed. They were all speaking and asking what was wrong etc. and although I understood them, I found that I could not respond; I felt very similarly to the way I did after my 5km TT. Eventually my speech returned (although slurry) and we obviously reasoned that I should go back to Sunninghill Hospital. That night was another blur of headaches and hospital smell.