Janet Leblond's Nightmare Months of Pre Stroke Symptoms January 1999, while typing on my computer (the monitor was too high so I was probably squishing something). I got a bad headache. I slept for an hour and then when I woke up, I had severe vertigo that lasted about 5 hours. After taking some Gravol, I slept some more and woke up with my right leg numb. The next morning, I got up to go to work, but found my whole right side was numb. I called in sick and went to the family doctor. He diagnosed it as migraine. I have never had a migraine, nor had anyone in my family. He told me to go home and rest and it will go away in a day or two. Eight days later, I was still numb so was sent into town to the hospital.

They admitted me for an MRI. Anybody from Canada knows the normal waiting list for an MRI is about a year. I was lucky, I had one in a few hours. It showed a small meningnoma /brain tumor that they asssured me, was not causing me any problems. Everything else was normal. I also had an MRA and it was completely normal. So the neurologist said he wanted to play the wait and see game for 6 weeks.

March / 99. Numbness still there and now I was very clumsy too. Due to my family history of MS, my doctor thought it could be a possibility..

June/99 developed a bad case of Scleritis left eye. Got treated and all was ok ( had it before this too)

July/99 Another MRI was done,showing numerous "unidentified bright objects in right side of head." I suffer another bout of of scleritis.

August/99 started getting bad headaches at the bottom of my right side of head. This was treated with Toradol

October/99: I experience my first visual aura. I had no idea what that was but I knew I didn?t like it much.

November/99 Auras increased to several a day, saw retinal specialist, who diagnosed some vessel at back of eye was inflamed but she said it not causing aura.

March/00: I was experiencing upto about 15 auras a day. Could no longer go out alone or drive. Couldn't see well enough during an aura. Neurologist starting to think that something was wrong with my arteries or perhaps lupus because of the scleritis

May/00: My mouth keeps getting this wierd taste then becoming completely numb. I became very clumsy and was getting vertigo constantly but the auras were less frequent.

Finally Off to the Hospital-Stroke Diagnosed

After having a bad headache for 6 days at the base of my head (right hand side),I finally went to the hospital. They treated with two IV drips. It took the edge off of it for the night. The next day it was all back full force. I ended up going to the local emergency clinic,they again started an IV, and tried several different medications before it was finally gone.

June/00: New MRI shows that I have had two strokes in the cerebellum.

Total Loss of Confidence with the Neurologists

July/00: My limbs were very numb got very clumsy. I had also moved to another province this month and new neurologist suggested that it was probably MS. He booked me for all the tests and sent me home.

August/00: Woke up one day and couldn't hold a pen, speech very slurred. Saw neurologist, again sent home to wait for tests. He did however offer me some sedatives to make me feel better. Hubby got me out of there before I told him where to put his pills.

September/00 By this time I had had it with the medical profession, I had little use for them and no confidence in them. My husband was out of the country on business leaving me alone with 3 kids. One night while sitting on the couch my entire left side went completely paralized. It passed after 10 minutes and then I was fine. An hour later it happened again. Again, it lasted for about 10 minutes then I was fine again .

I went to bed, wakingup the next morning all messed up. I tried to get up and succeeded in falling on my face. I finally got up holding on to the edge of my bed and cried. I am not generally a cry baby, but that day I couldn't help it. I was alone with three kids, hubby out of the country, living in a new place where I knew nobody.

So I decided I would muddle along and was sure it would pass. I got the kids to order pizza for supper because I couldn't cook at that point. The next day, I was in an even bigger mess. I couldn't get into the shower. Couldn't lift my arm or hand up and could hardly talk. My oldest son wanted to call a doctor, but I told him I would kill him if he did. I wasn't reasoning well either by this stage.

The 3rd day, I was a basket case, I could no longer sit up without support, I couldn't walk, couldn't talk. I wouldn't answer the phone because I knew it was my husband (a 6 hours time difference away) and I didn't want to worry him. So hubby called when he knew my kids would be home from school. My oldest son's words were "Moms all slumped over on the couch totally (Excuse the language) fucked up.

Hubby calls his sister, a nurse who lives about 45 minutes from here. She comes over and tells me I'm crazy and that I have to go to the hospital. I refused an ambulance. I couldn't stop crying. I hadn't eaten or drunk anything in 3 days because I was choking on my own saliva.

Finally my sister-in-law made a deal with me to go to the family doctor and I agreed just to stop everybody from bugging me. I was quite content to just sit on the couch till hubby returned in 3 weeks. I was definitely not thinking straight.Was I?

I couldn't walk, so it was not an easy thing for my sister in law and kids to get me into the car. I wasn't exactly cooperative either.

Of course the family doctor told my sister-in-law to take me to the hospital. So there we went. I was lucky they took me right away. The doctors their said I was probably having major MS flare. Hello, only on one side I asked?

Hubby flew home. It took him two days to get back into Canada, but boy was I glad to see him. I wanted to go home.

I waited in the hospital for three days waiting for an MRI. The hospital I was in were having their MRI repaired and so I was taken by ambulance to another hospital. By the time I got back to my bed, there was another stretcher waiting for me, the doctor said I had had "multiple strokes" and not MS. I had to go right away for a Cerebral Angiogram. With God as my witness, I will never have a cerebral angiogram ever again without loads of sedation.

Wow that hurt a lot. Buddy told me he would do the Basilar artery first, if it was OK then he would stop, but if there was something not right he would continue. Well after about 10 injections of dye, I had come to the conclusion he was either trying to see how tough I was or there was something very wrong.

Within a few minutes of returning to my room the doctor was there to explain the films. My right vertebral artery was a mess, it is skinny and not working at all. My Basilar artery has a 60% narrowing in it. There is an artery that connects to the top of the Basilar(carotid something or other) that provides a backwash of blood to the Basilar artery if need be. In my case for some reason it was missing and was not connected there. They called it an unfortunate combination.

So I was put on an heparin pump for 8 days with Coumadin pills. Also given blood pressure and cholestral pills even though that was not a problem, it was to ensure it never would be.

I was still crying at everything but didn't know it was an affect of the multiple strokes. I was also laughing when I shouldn't have been. When I cried I just looked sad but when I was laughing I behaved like a lunatic!

I stayed for 2 weeks in the hospital and I was desperate to go home. They said, I needed rehabilitation. So off I went to rehab for four months.

I'm home now since January 01. Still not walking. I have full use of my left hand although somewhat uncoordinated. My legs are weird, one is still numb and the other feels like jello. I have no balance from the damage in my cerebellum. I'm not choking too much anymore and can eat most things.

I have a small memory problem and I distract very easily. All in all, I count myself very lucky to come out the way I have. I still get auras, but not as much. I also get numbness and tingling a lot. I'm always afraid of it happening again.

But doc says it is a short circuit in my brain stem. I'm maxed out on the drugs I can take, now I'm also taking a vaso dialator, anti coagulant, anti platlet etc. My next step is stenting the basilar artery and perhaps my one working vertebral artery. As the risks are so high for that, it was decided by me not to go forward with that yet.

Told ya it was long..LOL
thanks for listening yours eyes must be killing you now from reading all this.

Janet Leblond