Ten years after…

There’s a good reason why I’ve been trawling the memory banks recently.

Today is the tenth anniversary of stroke survival.

Mine was caused by atrial fibrillation and it came without any warning signs.

I’d had a fair amount of treatment for a leg injury caused by a bacterial infection over three months in 2004, my partner Caroline is a nurse and I’d just had a medical three days beforehand when I registered with a GP after moving to Yorkshire. Nothing came up to suggest any atrial fibrillation problems.

The outer damage healed (I hit a wall and then the pavement with my face as I collapsed) and whilst there’s some effects still ten years after, I consider myself to be very lucky considering the percentages related to stroke survival

My thanks go to the ambulance crew, the team at the A&E department and the stroke unit at Airedale Hospital who spotted what had happened and also to the driver of the Polish registered car who stopped to see what had happened when four UK registered cars has driven past me as I was lying on the pavement near my flat.

A special mention goes to the makers of The West Wing too – I’ve watched the whole thing every year apart from this one as a means of testing my memory out by remembering story lines, lines of dialogue and that I really should miss one episode of the last series in future!

And also to Caroline for everything before and since!