Day 4: Be-stockinged

The consultant was back from his holiday so we requested a quick word after his rounds. He was a fairly hard-nosed, self-important chap who nevertheless took the time to answer our questions. Yes, Dad had had a stroke, but not a severe one. The brain scan had shown a tiny part of his brain had been affected. He should make a good recovery. And why hadn't we made our July 10th appointment? The last question was said with just a little annoyance. We explained how inefficient their 'notification' process had been.

My mum had been dying to practise some acupuncture on dad and the consultant was neither for nor against it. So she had the go-ahead.

Dad had a physio session where a nice friendly physiotherapist strapped a thick belt round dad's waist and then supported him while dad walked lopsidedly down the corridor. It was fantastic to see him moving. His left arm though was tougher work. Dad screwed his face up with the effort of trying to lift his arm.

Dad was exhausted, but there were more fun and games. We wheeled Dad down to the other side of this enormous hospital for his neck scan. This tells you how blocked up the arteries are on the sides of your neck. The results were not given to us.

In the afternoon, a chirpy young occupational therapist spoke to mum. She was responsible for helping dad do the normal, everyday things that he could do before the stroke, e.g. washing, dressing, making tea etc.

He was also dressed with thigh-high special stockings which promote the flow of blood. Like the kind of flight socks you can buy to help prevent clots forming in DVT. It's part of - well, I hesitate to use the word 'experiment', so - survey that dad has agreed to take part in. The advantage of participating is that he can have two leg scans done to check all is OK down there.

Dad was very snoozy. He hated the nights at the hospital with fellow patients sleep-talking or groaning and flourescent lights on. He didn't like the night nurses at all - they wouldn't help him take a leak. He explained that the night before, he had managed to prop himself on the bed and use the urine bottle. We thought this was a terrible idea - he wasn't steady on his feet at all and could easily fall. We voiced our concerns to the nurses about to come on night duty. "Oh it's fine!" they breezily announced. "This is a rehabilitation unit, they're supposed to do everything themselves!" But it's only like the fourth day? "Don't worry!"

With tears in his eyes, dad waved goodbye to us at the end of visiting hours.

Day 3: At close quarters

Having spoken to my mum, the events of Saturday night / Sunday morning were filled in. My parents are divorced but live in the same flat. At around 1 or 2 a.m., my mum happened to be still awake. She could hear banging from my dad's room and on investigation, found my dad semi-out of bed, stuck there, paralysed on his left side. He'd been banging with his right hand in the hope of getting her attention. Thank God she had been awake. It took a bit of time to get through to the ambulance services, but once contacted, they came like lightning and dad was taken to accident & emergency where all kinds of tests were done on him and he was diagnosed with having suffered a stroke...

On day 3, I had my first chance to visit my dad as a proper visitor (i.e. not an emotional wreck). My mother and I marched straight to his bay to find... an empty, tidy bed. My stomach wobbled thinking the worst and frantically found a nurse to ask where dad was. "Oh, he's been moved next door I think." Well, he had been moved but to two bays down. In fact he was the first patient you could see when you entered the ward and I had indeed seen a very shrunken figure out of the corner of my eye. I hadn't realised it was actually dad - I'd walked straight past him.

"Where have you been?" He was panicky. He was moved but nobody had told him why. We think it was because his condition had stabilised so he did not need to be in the 'intensive' bay.

We helped feed him his lunch. He didn't eat much and drank even less. Stroke victims often have difficulty swallowing. Everytime he drank water, he would cough, sometimes very harshly. It's scary. The flip side of drinking liquids is the wee-wee aspect. He'd been given a nappy to wear, but in fact he could control his bladder. He had to use a long-necked plastic bottle to pee, and needed help to do this. So a combination of fear of choking and embarrassment in urinating meant he refused to drink much no matter how much we nagged him.

My dad is a keen photographer so I'd brought in his camera for him to play with. I took a picture of him as a record. He didn't look as pale as before, but still droopy on the left hand side. When he saw the picture, he wagged his finger at it and said, "I hate you!"

I left for lunch and on my return, found him very pleased with himself. Two physiotherapists had taken him for a 'walk' around the ward. I'd missed it! After that, he was very snoozy and dozed on his seat in a rather lopsided position.

It felt good for me to be actually doing something, even if it was just sitting beside him.

Day 2: Back in the UK

Throughout the interminable flight back to the UK, I watched film after film after film. Anything to keep my mind off the "what if's", the hoping that I would get back in time. We landed pretty smoothly and my brother was there to meet us.
He did an amazing job at preparing me, regaling me with funny stories about the hospital combined with snip bits of vital information. Dad had had a blood clot stroke, would probably have to stay in hospital for many weeks. I was not to be alarmed when I saw him - he would be pale and seem very fragile. Then my brother would tell me about the nurses and how my dad was flirting with the pretty ones, the hospital with its fantastic view, the volunteer 'reader' trying to shout out a poem to a stone-deaf patient, how my dad was suspicious of the nurses taking his DNA when they were swabbing out his mouth...
We drove straight to the hospital and my brother led us to the specialist ward. It was past visiting hours and there was a quiet calm about the hospital and the ward. A smell of disinfectant, some nurses lounging about, patients at rest trying to recover. My brother steamed into the last bay breezily greeting my dad, and then I followed in after. We were both so happy to see each other! A huge relief swept over me. My dad got very emotional then and we both started crying. He was much more paler than before and the left side of his face was droopy and expressionless. My brother manoevered him like a child into a more straight lying position.
But mentally, he was more lucid than ever. He recounted how good my mum and brother had been, but now he felt 'safe'. He told me that he'd been for a brain scan and as he went into the 'tunnel' he felt like he was dead, as if in a coffin, and then how he'd been left in the accident and emergency ward with all the terribly injured people and he was so scared because nobody was taking him back to the ward and were ignoring him. He told me that some of the nurses were 'rude'. "They're trying to make you better," my brother said, "try to be nice to them."
It was time to go. I think we both felt so much better for having seen each other.

Day 1: A phone call in a Phnom Penh supermarket

I was in a supermarket in Phnom Penh. It was 11.30 am Cambodia time when my mobile rang. It was my mother and I remember thinking, "Silly, we arranged the call for the afternoon", when it hit me it must be 4 o'clock in the morning her time, and something was very very wrong.
My dad had had another turn. If the effects last for more than 24 hours, it's officially a stroke. He was paralysed down the left side but could still speak and was still mentally aware. She'd tell me more later but she had to get some sleep.
In a daze, I called my husband and ... continued shopping in the supermarket. What else could I do? I went back to the flat and that's when I started crying. How serious was it? Would I be able to get back to the UK in time to see him again? My husband immediately took control of the situation and organised our flight tickets, passport return (at the agents for visa purposes) and insurance, whilst trying to comfort me at the same time. It being a Sunday made things doubly difficult, but he was a star, and ran around the city managing everything.
Ironically, we had already bought tickets to return to the UK in August, and were already thinking of leaving our flat in Phnom Penh. "If you want to busy yourself," he said, "start packing". So inbetween sobbing incontrollably, I packed everything.
Later, I skyped my mum and brother. They were very upbeat - but I think that was more for my benefit. My dad was OK - still the same person. Just unable to move his left side. He was very grumpy about being in hospital but had had roast beef for dinner and liked that. He did have the indignity of wearing a "nappy" however. "Don't worry, don't cry, sweetheart," my brother said. He never calls me "sweetheart".
I didn't get much sleep that night. I felt sick and prayed to God to please let me see my dad, please help him get better. I realised that crying didn't help anybody. It was hard to stop, but I tried.

Fate?

I don't want to be seen to be exploiting my dad's predicament. But it's dominating huge chunks of my life at the moment. And maybe it might be useful for others...

There seem to be so many threads which have conspired together leading up to my dad's stroke. There are a lot of 'what if's?', guilt, responsibility, and plain administrative muck-ups, which make me feel sometimes that is was fate, unavoidable, inevitable.

Yet there are also a fair few 'thank God for....' feelings sprinkled around.

My dad is a robust Chinese man in his 80s - often mistaken for somebody 20 years younger. He has high blood pressure and cholesterol but wasn't taking any medicine for it. About 6 or more months ago, my dad complained of blurred vision. He usually suffers from migraines anyway so nobody paid much attention. The opticians said he it was cataracts but we sensed that wasn't the real problem.

Then I read somewhere that blurred vision - especially in one eye - could be a sympton of an impending stroke. My heart skipped a little yet at the same time, there was a sense of denial: no, not my dad... But I did mention it to my mum over the phone. So she made him see the doctor... who referred him to an eye specialist.

As this is the NHS, these type of appointments take weeks, if not months, to get scheduled in. The eye specialist confirmed it was not cataracts that were the problem, but not enough blood getting to the eye. A referral for a special scan was needed. There was a three month waiting list.

At the end of June, my dad collapsed on the floor at home. He couldn't move but could still speak. My mum found him and made some phonecalls, unsure what exactly to do. But 20 minutes later, he simply got up himself. The doctor came round to take a look. It was a mini-stroke (Transient Ischaemic Attack). The doctor would hasten the special scan appointment.

My dad was extremely tired and would get dizzy when he went out. A full-on stroke is very likely to follow a mini-stroke so my mum harrassed the hospital for the appointment. The reply was always the same: we would be notified. I ordered my mum to start investigating getting this scan done privately.

Well, we were notified. In a combination of administrative cock-up and late postal services on 10 July at 1.30 pm we received a letter from the hospital saying that our appointment was for... 10 July, 1.30 pm. No, the hospital said, they could not fit us in until the 31st July. The consultant was on holiday.

On the 23rd July, I got the dreaded phonecall. My dad was in hospital having suffered a stroke...

Introduction

My dad had a stroke.
It happened.
This is his tale of recovery told from his daughter's point of view.
Some of it isn't pretty.