So I’ve told you all who Cyril is and why he’s an arsehole, I’ve also mentioned that he’s made me an epileptic, but not how this was diagnosed. Well strap in folks here is the story of the start of my epilepsy journey.
The first time I keeled, over was Sunday the 7th of October, I had just watched an uninspiring Japanese Formula One Grand Prix, where Hamilton had won 
(not a fan 
)
I went to answer the call of nature or sit on the throne (for any American folks I was taking a dump 
) and being a bloke I was reading a car magazine, more traditional in our house none of this checking Facebook in the toilet here.
The page I was reading suddenly stopped making sense, I could read short words like and or the, but any of the longer ones suddenly made no sense. I knew the words I was looking at (it turned out to be Meguiars car polish advert) were ones I should know but just couldn’t make me brain see them correctly. I was sitting there laughing at myself I even remember saying to myself get a grip you senile old bastard (yes I’m 50, yes I talk to myself deal with it 
) for a couple of minutes I sat there laughing.
I then sat up straight and thought, wow I feel really hot and a bit faint, four hours later I woke up in our local hospital.
There were two different tubes attached to drips stuck in my left arm and wrist, a monitor clip thingy on my left index finger, and six or seven cables snaking about my upper body. These were attached to monitor pads stuck across my chest, neck, stomach and head.
And sat on the right hand side of the bed were my long suffering wife and younger daughter, both looked terrified but relieved to see me waking up.
I am not one for subtlety, as my first words on waking will demonstrate, I apparently said ‘ what the fuck is all this shit, and where the fuck am I?’ Told you, not known for my tacked either, it would appear.
I then tried to get out of bed, yes I know, I’m not the sharpest knife in the draw.
In my defence, you have to understand, the last thing I remember was being in my downstairs toilet, so waking up roughly four hours later, in a hospital bed was somewhat of a shock.
Thankfully the nurse came in and told me off, she was a lovely young lady called Clare and looked after me incredibly kindly (I best warn you all now, I love our NHS so I get a bit gushy with my praise to the folks who work there and really annoyed at what those bastard tory politicians are doing to it) so suitably chastised I lay back and had my blood pressure checked.
My wife and younger daughter Gabby were obviously relieved to see me back in the land of the living again. The following conversation is a little hazy but went something like this;
‘Yes, sorry nurse it was a bit of a shock, no I’ll do as I’m told’
‘Oh Dad I was so worried, are you ok?’ Cue massive rather painful hug from 17 year old daughter, still no better feeling than that hug I can tell you.
‘How do you feel love?’ From long suffering, seen it all before spouse.
Me ‘ermmmm, what the fuck happened, where am I, can I go home please?’
I should mention at this stage that I had bitten my tongue very badly so couldn’t talk properly. So my responses should be read like some poor soul with the worst lisp you could imagine who had then also bitten their tongu to shreds like I had.
My poor wife then asked what I remembered.
‘Well I’d had a shit, I was reading and advert in Banzia and I felt hot and I woke up here’ again if you were looking for highbrow writing skills, sorrrrrry.
She then in her most patient, dealing with kids voice (she is a teaching assistant in a secondary school so used to dealing with stupid and annoying questions, from stupid and annoying people) tried to get me to understand I was in hospital, because I’d had what turned out to be three seizures.
This took an awful long time for me to grasp as my brain really wasn’t working at full capacity (more on why shortly) but eventually I understood enough of what was going on, to calm down and start getting a grip.
My wife then explained what had happened to me, to make me end up where I was presently laying and it went something like this.
Last thing my wife had seen was me disappearing off moaning about ‘that poxy Hamilton winning again’ (as I said earlier not a fan) about ten minutes later (don’t judge it was a good article about a Toyota Supra) she heard a massive bang. Thinking daughter number two had fallen over in her bedroom or similar, my wife went into the hallway and was about to shout upstairs when Gabby shouted down asking what had just happened.
My wife then realised it was me who’d causing all the noise, so she knocked on the toilet door calling my name a few times. With no reply or answer of any kind my poor wife then had to bite the bullet and open the door to check on me.
Now, we have been married for 21 years, but somethings have remained ‘private’ in our relationship and the loo has most definitely been one of these things.
So the sight of me passed out on the toilet, tracksuit bottoms and underwear around my ankles is something its going to take the poor woman many years to get over (as I’m sure it will for you guys too, oh god I hope we never meet 
).
She said I was grey and slumped to the left, against the wall. Despite repeated attempts calling my name etcetera, there was no response. Now to her eternal credit, she didn’t just close the door and go and find the number for the life insurance policy.
Rather, she propped my up as best she could and to spare my poor daughter she pulled the door to.
Gabby was already on the phone having called 999 and was speaking to the lady, who had dispatched an ambulance, then while looking the other way she passed the phone to her mum. A conversation then took place with the lady at the emergency response centre asking my wife various questions until the ambulance arrived.
As I’m both awkward and a pain in the arse a second ambulance was required to attend, in my defence the first one turned up in lightening fast time but only had one chap in it, hence the second one being required. I’m 6’2” and 16 stone so one guy and my 5’2” wife had no chance of getting me out of our tiny downstairs loo.
My wife had by some miracle managed to ‘reattach’ my underwear and tracksuit bottoms, to this day I don’t know how.
So when the second ambulance crew turned up they managed to get me up and to walk or shuffle to the sofa. Where I then lay back and apparently answered their questions, again like all of this I have no memory of what happened.
After a while they helped me walk to the ambulance and got me on the bed, gurney whatever you prefer to call it. Where upon I promptly had a massive seizure, which required three doses of a drug called Diazepam so 15mg in all.
This is a drug they use, if they are going to, say, stick a tube down your throat, as it both relaxes you (why they used it in my case) but it also makes you forget. Now I think if you had to have a tube stuck down your throat, being relaxed and not remembering any of it are two very good things, I think you’d agree.
Its these three doses of Diazepam which stop me remembering pretty much all of this. On a later appointment with my lovely neurologist (see previous blog) she said when I told her I’d woken up after only four hours ‘bugger, with that amount you shouldn’t have woken up until about Tuesday’
I was then carted off to hospital my wife and daughter drove themselves there and were awaiting for my arrival at A&E (love to make and entrance ) my wife asked if I knew who she was, which I apparently slurred a reply of ‘the mrs’ you can imagine her delight.
I was then put on a drip and had other things plugged into monitor me as I lay in A&E, before being taken for a CT scan and then on to the hospital room I woke up in earlier in this story.
The two things I actually do remember from the whole time this took place are, coming round to hear someone saying ‘Ok martin we’re going to get you in the CT scanner now’ and a few minutes later being aware of being in the CT scanner and then nothing until waking up in bed.
If you’ve got this far I congratulate you and yes your right I don’t half go on now you know why I used the term long suffering, when describing my wife. I will continue this saga in a further post, as I think even the most hardcore of you will have had enough of me by now.
