Rebecca

'Rebecca?'

I was sure someone was calling me, but it seemed so distant, and the sound was slipping away into the quiet... In to peace once more.

'Rebecca?!'

There it was again. So urgent. Why were people shouting my name? I wanted to answer them, but I couldn't. I wanted to tell them to stop bothering me, to let me rest, but they carried on shouting my name. There was more than one person, there were lots of people. Why did they all sound scared, why were they all panicking?

'Rebecca?!'

Something was on my face. Get it off! Why was something covering my mouth and my nose. Who were all these people? Why couldn't I answer them? What was on my face?!

'Rebecca?! Bec?!'

Mum? I could hear Mum. Chris? Was that Chris, and Dad? But there were other people as well. They were talking fast, and it was scaring me, I could feel them acting in haste around me. My eyes felt heavy, but I wanted to see what was going on. I tried with all my might to wrench the lids away from my eye balls, but I could only see through slits. It was bright. Unfamiliar.
Hang on a minute!
Where was Anna?
Anna?
My sister?
Was she OK?
I tried even harder to open my eyes, and straight away I focus on Mum's worried face. My eyes swiftly scanned around the faces that were staring at me. I didn't recognise anybody but, my family. Where was I? Last I remembered, I was in the cinema... Surely I wasn't still there.
It suddenly occurred to me that I was lying on the floor. What happened?
'Mum?'
'Bec, you collapsed, we're still in the cinema.'
'Hello, Rebecca, can you hear me?' A woman dressed in green was looking down at me, her fingers pressed to my wrist, assessing my pulse. A paramedic? A man, dressed in the same green uniform was talking to Dad, and Chris. I looked round and finally spotted Anna's little white face, staring at me, she was sat behind one of the cinema chairs. She looked wide eyed, and worried, and I just wanted to go and sit with her.
I went to move my head, but as soon as I did a wave of nausea attacked my body, making me convulse... I  was going to be sick. The paramedics flipped me on my side in to the recovery position, but the sickness passed, and I just wanted to sleep. I didn't care that I was on the floor of the cinema, surrounded by strangers, I just wanted to close my eyes and slip back in to a state of unconscious. But before I knew it, the male paramedic was lifting me into my wheelchair, I realised that attached to my face was an oxygen mask, and as my body was being moved without my permission, I gulped in mouthfuls of pure oxygen, as I was smacked in the face once more with the unwelcome sensation of sickness.
I allowed my head to loll to one side, as I tried to ignore my body's urge to throw up, and while I was being wheeled out of the theatre, I glanced to the side to see rows, and rows of people staring back at me. I felt too poorly to allow myself to recognise how humiliating the situation was, but deep down I knew this would be a story that we would be telling for a long time.
Senior members of the Trafford Centre staff were meeting us at different points on the journey down to the ambulance but I had next to no energy to manage to even lift my head in acknowledgement. I needed to get out. I needed fresh air. I needed to be sick... very, very, sick.
I could hear the hushed, but worried tones, of the conversation my family were having with the female paramedic. My first outing since the stroke, ending in disaster... I fought the urge to cry.
Just get me home.
As Mum finalised our details with a manager from the Trafford Centre, and Anna and Chris kissed me goodbye, and promised to meet us at the hospital, Dad followed as the paramedic wheeled me in to the back of that, oh-so-familiar, ambulance, and the doors were only shut as soon as Mum was seated.
Squeezing my forehead with my right hand, I tried to answer the questions the paramedic was throwing at me, but my concentration could focus on nothing but the vomit that was rising through my body, and this time there was no stopping it. Quick thinking from Dad, I keeled over the grey cardboard bowl he held in front of me, and then when I had filled the first one, he rubbed my back as I began to empty my guts in to the second bowl.
Fluctuating from boiling to freezing every two minutes, with sweat dripping from my brow, and my body shaking uncontrollably, I closed my eyes as Dad stroked my head, and listened to Mum's worried sobs as we travelled closer to the hospital.
Chris and Anna were waiting for us as promised, and my poor sister looked terribly pale, her big brown eyes ringed with grey circles, and her hands shaking from the cold she couldn't escape.
As I lay in my bed on wheels in the hospital I had been discharged from only a couple of weeks ago, I listened to the story of what had happened in the cinema.
It all began as Dad heard Anna making a choking noise. He thought, at first, that she was coughing, but as he asked her if she was OK, he realised that she was choking. He shouted my Mum while at the same time, trying to wrench Anna's jaw apart, when he finally managed to get in to her mouth he had to pull her tongue from the back of her throat. While this was happening, I apparently grabbed the back of my Mum's top, and said, 'Mum, I'm going too,' and as she turned back to see if I was OK, I fell from my seat and began to shake uncontrollably. Mum who's attention was torn away from Anna, shouted Chris who had re-entered the cinema, (as he had been out to call an ambulance for Anna,) to help me. In the time from Chris re-entering the cinema, to see the commotion, Anna had come round and was  talking, and said she felt OK. Dad took over from Mum, and lifted me over the seats to Chris, so Chris could get me on the floor in a more open space. Mum went over to check on Anna. The first aid staff from the Trafford Centre, along with two nurses who had been watching the film, were apparently checking over my vitals, and giving me oxygen, all while I lay unconscious, being watched over by around 100 sets of strangers eyes.

At the same time as being told the story of the night's events, I was also being given an ECG which we all noticed was being checked over by more than one senior doctor... something wasn't right.

'Rebecca? I'm afraid we're going to have to keep you in.'

Imagine

Imagine living life as an immortal. The world around you gliding through the seasons, everyday a change occurring, whether it be life changing, or excruciatingly mundane, yet you're not floating along with it. In a heartbeat gentle buds escape from stark, skeletal tree branches, accenting that the brutal cold is now a memory, as sunshine forges it's way into people's hope, creating false promise everyday until the first leaf fall-a sure sign of the cycle beginning once more. Imagine watching people live what they believe is a normal life, with every confidence in themselves that they know what the future holds, their plans exciting them, the unknown nonexistent. Imagine being at a standstill, time ticking away, yet you are stark, a statue. Imagine watching people achieve, progress, even fall back a few paces, while you wait for life to remember you. While you beg to live again. Imagine.

I was beginning to fall in to a routine just like I had done on the ward. I was woken up by mum every week day when Chris was at uni, and she helped me to the bathroom and stood with me as I brushed my teeth. She then proceeded to sit me on the toilet seat as she undressed me for my shower and then gently washed me as I sat on my new bath bench. Mum would then go on to help me get dry and dressed in to comfy day clothes and she would help me downstairs to my now allocated spot on the settee, while she made my breakfast and I nonchalantly flicked through the usual drawl that is daytime TV. 

We had had at least one visitor every day since leaving hospital. Each of them wanting to know the story of what had happened and how I had been affected, what the prognosis was and how I felt about it. I tried to be upbeat for each of my visitors and engaged in whatever conversation they wanted to involve me in, but it was painfully difficult to ignore the tiredness that plagued my whole being from the moment I awoke till the precious second I lay my head on my pillow. 

As it had been in hospital, napping was very much still an integral part of my new daily regime. At times I would fall asleep while Mum was still entertaining a guest, but I was never chastised for what some may deem a very rude thing to do. People pitied me... I pitied me. 

The penultimate film of the Twilight series, 'Breaking Dawn pt1' was out in the cinema, and on a day where I felt particularly upbeat I decided I'd like to go to the cinema and watch it with my family. As a fan of the Twilight saga I had been anticipating this film and didn't want to wait till it was out on DVD to watch it. I asked my Mum if we could all go and see it and with a grim expression of uncertainty, she reasoned the request with my Dad and they finally agreed.

I had napped in the afternoon of course, and so was sure I'd make it through the film without falling asleep. 

I was helped in to the front seat of my Dads car while Chris, Mum and Anna squashed in to the back. We waited as Dad wrestled the wheelchair in to the boot, and then we made our way to the Trafford Centre. All of a sudden I felt quite unsettled at the prospect of going to a place filled with strangers. I was nervous about the thought of seeing people we recognised and having to make polite chit chat and also worried about the sympathy stares I would get from passers by I didn't know, just because I was in a wheel chair.

I attempted to bury my anxiety's in to the back of my mind, eager to enjoy an outing with my family, desperate to have a night out as close to normal as possible in the state I was in. 

When we arrived and parked up, I waited as everyone piled out of the car, turning my head to see Chris heave the wheelchair out of the boot and assemble the foot rests... My carriage awaited. 

Dad wrapped his arm around me and gently helped me exit the car and assisted as I reseated myself in the chair. My heart strained with embarrassment as I received my first mercy look, and I felt my cheeks warm in discomfort. 

Both Dad and Chris tried to make light of the situation and both had me giggling as they ran pushing the wheel chair and when the path was clear, let go of the chair handles, so that for a couple of seconds I was wheeling along on my own with absolutely no means of being able to stop myself. I loved the men in my life for being so silly and carefree. They didn't treat me like I was delicate glass waiting to be broken. They made everything not so bleak. Thank God for them.

We made our way through the Trafford Centre and went in the lifts up to the cinema complex. I waited with my sister and Chris as Mum and Dad went to buy the tickets and I allowed myself to get a little bit excited about watching the film.

I focused on chatting to Chris and Anna, who I felt, without them knowing so, were acting as my bodyguards, protecting me from the prying eyes of passers by. 
I was eager to get in to the screen room that was showing our film where it would be dark and I could focus on the story and be confident that everyone else's attention would lie within the projection too.

Mum and Dad waved us over when they had paid for the tickets and discussed wheelchair formalities, and when Mum had checked that I felt well enough to watch the film and I convinced her I was excited, we followed a bustling crowd to claim our seats in the theatre.

I watched as the beautiful people on the screen laughed and cried their way through the fictional drama, and found myself sighing away the weight of my own storyline and immersing myself in the very made up lives of these layered characters. 

I clung on to Chris's hand as I clung on to the normality of my current situation, guessing by how long we had been in the cinema that there couldn't be much more of the film left. I didn't want it to end as I had enjoyed it so much, but I was also pleased with how successful the outing had gone.

The film was nearing a crucial point and I was deeply involved in the scene until I heard my Dad shout for my Mum. 

My attention was clawed away from the film and I searched for my Dads face in the darkness to see what he wanted my Mum for.

'She's swallowing her tongue... Anna's swallowing her tongue. Quick! Call an ambulance!'

Mum leaped from her seat to Anna's aid, while Chris ran from the theatre to get help from staff and call an ambulance. 

I looked on from my seat at the very real scene that was occurring just feet away from me, and then my head began to feel funny, as though it was falling through space and not reaching a landing point. The last thing I remember was reaching out and grabbing the back of my Mum's t-shirt begging her to help me, as I slammed in to an unconscious state...

Swish Swoo

Having a stroke has actually made my life quite exciting, I get asked to do things and go to things that previously I would never have known about.
Back in November I had an email from a friend at the Stroke Association telling me about a girl of a similar age to me wanting to put on a charity fashion show in Liverpool, in aid of raising money for the Stroke Association.
Of course I was interested.
Being a young Stroke Survivor the message I always want to get across is that there is Life After Stroke.
This message is something the girl who wanted to put on the fashion show also wanted to put out there.
Her request was for me to make a speech about my life pre stroke, then tell people the story of when I had my stroke, but most importantly, my life after stroke.
I was nervous about standing up in front of a room full of people and telling my story, but I want to get the message out there.
I had to ignore my nerves, put on my biggest smile, get out there and do it... So I did.
Here is a video of my speech.
Also an explanation about the man who is standing next to me... I couldn't hold a microphone and my speech at the same time, and apparently they couldn't find me a microphone stand... So I made a new, half dressed friend...
Enjoy.

Obligatory One Armed Hug

A few days after leaving hospital, it was bonfire night... One of my favourite nights of the year. I had spent the previous 72 or so hours trying to settle back in to home life, and trying to establish a routine similar to the one I had in hospital. Mum never left my side, I needed her more than ever. Luckily her work was amazingly sympathetic with our situation and told her she could stay with me for as long as she felt she needed to.
Previous bonfire nights for my family and I had always consisted of going to a local bonfire and firework display on the Saturday closest to the 5th November. We'd all wrap up in big coats, hats and scarves, and don our wellie's in preparation for the muddy fields we were about to squelch around on.

Like I assumed most other things would be, bonfire night was going to be different, post stroke.

Dad and Chris wanted to get me out of my funk and get me in the spirit of things. Chris had invited two of our closest friends round, and he and Dad had gone out and bought a massive box of fireworks for us to have our own mini display at home in the back garden. At first I didn't think Mum would be thrilled with the idea, as we'd never done it before and Dad and Chris were teasing her with their grand ideas of the display they imagined they'd put on, but Mum was really excited. I think the whole family wanted to make everything as normal as possible for me and so they didn't want me to miss out on anything we usually took part in.
I wanted to get as excited as the rest of my family were, but the anxiety that I'd been feeling since coming home hadn't left me.
I smiled along as Mum made plans to cook baked potatoes for everyone, and looked on as Dad and Chris decided where in the garden they should let off the fireworks. I desperately wanted to enjoy myself, and feel normal, but I was having to bite my tongue to stop myself from revealing that all I really wanted to do was curl up on the settee, wrapped in my duvet, and aimlessly watch TV without having to interact with anyone. I wanted to lose myself in a film, or comedy series, and watch fictional characters live their lives, rather than deal with my own sorry story.
I felt a growing ball of nerves in my chest as I anticipated my friends coming over. They'd visited me in hospital where I could watch over as my family entertained them, but I would have to make an effort with them when they came to my house.
How should I act? What do I do when they ask me questions? What if I get upset? Will they still act normal around me?
I didn't know what to do. Before the stroke I had been so socially confident. I would have been happy to be the leader of any conversation and I adored the company of a large crowd. Post stroke I felt very socially awkward and shy. I just wanted to be with my close family and any time I had a visitor, which was more than once a day, I didn't want to be left alone with them. I was frustrating myself. My feelings and thought processes were annoying me, but it felt like I couldn't do anything about it, I felt lost in the maze of my own mind with no way out.
I painted on my brightest smile and and sat up as straight as possible on the settee when I heard the knock at   the door that I had been so anxiously anticipating. As our friends walked into the living room, my nerves were at their most aggressive, though I did my utmost to conceal them behind the acting skills I was so quickly acquiring.
I gave out the obligatory one armed hugs and tried to immerse myself in to the conversation that had quickly fired up between everyone else in the house. I felt myself start to relax slightly. but it was as if there was a barrier in my subconscious telling me not to get too comfortable and to always be on guard. I felt fidgety and agitated, I just wanted to run upstairs for a moment to catch my breath and take control of my feelings... But I couldn't. I couldn't run anywhere. I could barely walk anywhere. I was trapped.
It was soon time for Dad and Chris's  firework display. Everyone made their way to the garden, moving slowly so as to try and imitate my snails pace. I tried to make a joke out of it not wanting anyone to feel sorry for me, but I was embarrassed and felt let down by my stupid body.
When in the garden, I sat between my Mum and my friend on the bench and we covered our knees in a blanket so as to stop our knees feeling the biting, November cold. Anna dished out the sparklers while the men prepared the launch pad, (4 bricks.) The air was filled with dispersed smoke from surrounding home made bonfires, and the smoky smell erupted a nostalgic feeling that sparked contented emotions from memories of previous bonfire nights.
I snuggled in between my two loved ones and looked around at the rest of my family and friends seeing the excitement that was building in their faces as we waited for the first firework to be let off. Maybe this bonfire night was different...Different in a good way.
As the whistling scream sounded from the first firework filled my ears, I forced my brain to concentrate on nothing else but the bursts of colour that filled the sky with a bang.
Different...Different in a good way.

Lost at Sea

I awoke with bleary eyes, not quite registering to my surroundings. I stared at the fireplace and then steered my eyes towards the big flat screen telly in the corner of the room. I was home.
I had only been in the house around four hours, yet I had slept solidly on the settee for three of those hours. I panicked when I realised i was alone in the living room. Where were Mum and Anna? I didn't want to be on my own. What If it happened again? What if no one was there to find me?
I was used to the noise and business of the ward, seeing nurse after nurse pass by the door to my side room, popping their heads round the corner to check if I was OK. But now it was quiet, no one to help me if I needed them. What if something bad happened?
Thankfully my ears began to register to the muffled attempted whispers of my Mum and Sister in the kitchen. They had obviously been trying to keep the noise down so as to not wake me. I welcomed the sound of their familiar voices and smiled, as I realised they weren't very good at whispering at all, they simply talked with an added husky tone.
I called them in to the living room, and my sister flopped on to the arm chair, and showed no sympathy to the fact that Mum hadn't let her watch telly due to me sleeping and in turn had persuaded her to help in the kitchen. I grinned at my sister, who was now leisurely flicking through the channels, volume well above what it needed to be, as Mum rolled her eyes and left us both to watch one of our many favourite reality shows.
I snuggled my head on to the pillow and coiled myself in to the blanket that had been put on me, trying to fight the tempting urge to drop back off to sleep. It was getting on to being late afternoon, yet the day that I'd had seemed to have had so much packed in to it. It was now surreal that just hours before I had been in my hospital room, the only place where I had lived in my new body, and if I'm honest the place that made me feel more content than the thought of being any where else.
I thought I would welcome the freedom and familiarity of being back at home with open arms, but as a cuddled deep in to my blanket the feeling of anxious uncertainty crept up through my skin, like a vine on an ageing tree. I buried myself in to the settee trying to concentrate on the programme Anna had put on the telly, but I felt as if I was lost at sea, screaming for safety and reassurance, yet nobody hearing my cries.
The dream of coming home to the house where i had lived my whole life, was now being crushed by an overwhelming realisation that I was on my own. I had to deal with this thing that had taken over my body, my life, and it hit me that deep down I had thought getting out of hospital and getting back to my house with my family, would be, just as it was before... But it wasn't. Life was different. I was different.
I inwardly scolded myself for constantly having begged the Doctors and physios to let me out of hospital. I knew I had worn them down and their decision had partly been because I was so adamant. But now I was regretting that I had been so persistent. Maybe I wasn't ready to deal with the reality of it all yet. I was safe and isolated it that hospital room. Everything was routined. I knew exactly what was going to happen and when it was going to happen. Being at home, where I should have felt safe and happy, I now felt out of my depth.
The afternoon slid into evening, and Dad and Chris were now home. Chris didn't leave my side. I was tucked under his arm, as the five of us watched television together, just as we always had before the 18th October 2011. Chris didn't hold back his feelings of sheer glee and relief that I was out of hospital and out of the confines and Big Brother type environment of Ward E1. I tried to emulate the happiness that my family were feeling to have me back with them, but as I tried to relax next to Chris and lose myself in the programme we were watching I couldn't shift the growing knot of fear that was multiplying deep within me. The journey for me was only just starting, and I couldn't see the end, I couldn't see a finishing point. I didn't know where my life was leading, or what was going to happen. At 21 years old, I felt well beyond my years.
Being in hospital, I knew exactly what would happen in my day, and when. I could lose myself in the schedule that had been manipulated for me, I had only to focus on the day and tasks in hand... Now my focus had slipped. My life was blurred, and I couldn't rip myself away from the painful thought that just over two weeks previously, I had been cocky enough to think that I had finally got everything sorted, and I knew exactly where my life's path was taking me.
Soon enough it was time for bed. Chris and Mum lead me upstairs to help with my needs in the bathroom and getting my pyjamas on.
After brushing my teeth, Mum helped me along to my bedroom where Chris was sat on the bed waiting for me. I sat on the bed and heaved my left side so as it followed my right. Chris tucked me in and lay next to me on his side, propped up by his elbow. Mum stroked my head and was ready to say goodnight, when silent, hot tears began to stream down the sides of my face. Mum's face crumpled in to understanding, and Chris pounced in to a seating position asking what the matter was, and if I was OK.
'I'm scared, it's going to happen again.'
I hadn't been in my room, or lay in my bed since the morning the paramedics were carrying out my shocked and paralysed body. Just lying in the bedroom I could replay in my mind the events of that fateful Tuesday morning, like they had just happened a minute ago. Everything in the room was so familiar, everything was as it always had been, nothing had changed... except me.
Chris and Mum tried to console and reassure me as best as possible and with them both at my side the crippling tiredness that rarely left me these days washed over me like a tidal wave of darkness and through heaving, dry sobs I drifted off to sleep.

 

Bec Beau's Reading of the blog post 'Such a lucky girl'

Intro to my vlog (Video Blog)

Hi all,

I have made a short video for you to see me, the writer behind the story of 'Such a Lucky Girl'

I thought it would be nice for you all to get to know me a little better by hearing my voice, and understanding my reasons behind writing the blog.

Also another reason behind my decision to use other media to interpret my story is because today, 18th October 2012, is my 1 year Stroke anniversary (Strokeyversary) Therefore I thought it would be kind of cool to mark the occasion!

So, enjoy!

And thank you for your constant interest in my story! You, the readers, have made this year that little bit easier for me.

Lots of love, Bec x