Hello.
In late October I suffered a stroke. I am 46. I am ( or was ) extremely fit, apparently healthy, didn’t smoke or drink. I didn’t fit into any of the high risk categories.
My stroke began with a sudden and severe headache. For me, the first sign of something more serious was when I went to type on my laptop keyboard and noticed I was struggling to type with my right hand. I’ve had quite a bit of first aid training, so I got up and went to the bathroom to look at myself in the mirror. I had no facial drooping, I could raise my hands in the air and I could talk to myself. It was ok, I told myself, I wasn’t having a stroke! I went back to my desk and tried to work and my right hand gradually got slightly better. About an hour later, with my headache persisting and whilst sat at my desk my vision suddenly went completely blurry, I could not see anything. At this point I got scared. I lay on the floor and hoped it would get better, which after 15 or minutes it did. I went to have a lie down before deciding to get some tea, it was at this point that my eyesight began to fail again and I realised I needed to call someone - so i called my GP, I could not convince myself that I was a medical emergency. Only after they told me to ring an ambulance, did I dial 999.
Even when the paramedics arrived they were not convinced I had a stroke. By this time I could use my right hand at least partially, my eyesight had mostly recovered and I got through most of their tests but they were concerned enough that they advised I needed to go to hospital.
I spent 8hrs in A&E, I was seen promptly, had a CT scan etc but the doctors I initially saw thought I had a bad migraine. I was about to be discharged when a new doctor came to see me and thought my CT scan showed an abnormality (but not a stroke) that was of sufficient concern that he referred me for an MRI scan. I was then handed over to a medical team to treat a ‘bacterial infection and dehydration’. It was now 12 hrs or more since my first symptoms. I got given a corridor suite and bedded down for the night.
Then at 3am I was woken by a nurse and, for reasons I still do not know, found myself in the stroke ward with a nursing team saying they would need to treat me as if I had a TIA. I am not sure even they thought I had a stroke.
It was 0930 the following morning when I had my MRI scan, 24 hrs after my symptoms began. The MRI scan showed I had suffered an Ischaemic stroke, on the right hand side of my brain.
I was not told this initially. I discovered my fate some 2 hours later whilst sat in my hospital bed overhearing a conversation between two ward nurses who were evidently shocked that the patient in bed number so and so had had a stroke. It was only when I looked up at my room number that I realised they were talking about me!
It was 2030 that evening, 36 hrs after my stroke began before a doctor finally came to see me and told me face to face that I had had a stroke, and 48 hrs before someone came to tell me what happened and ask how I was feeling.
Not the greatest experience, on all fronts, but I cannot fault the caring nature of the nurses, trying to do a job in evidently very challenging circumstances. As frustrating as things are I count myself lucky, I just struggle with reminding myself of that fact at the moment.
I have since been diagnosed with a PFO (hole in the heart) but with the exception of that ‘pathway’ no other cause for my stroke to have occurred in the first place has yet been found. I may never know why.
?.
Welcome to the forum 
Poor lifestyles choices merely increase that risk 