The times were exciting because the girl’s and I were going to America! I had been to the US Consulate the day before and got the paper work started and then I went to the dentist, tidying all the little things up. On the day of my stroke, I drove myself and my eldest daughter (Erin) to Crows Nest (our little town near Sydney, Australia) and I went to the gym, while my daughter went to get us a coffee before she started work at the local cinema, which I was intending on drive her to.
I did a circuit in the gym and then packed up my things and thought ‘cripes, what a headache I’ve got’, and that is the last thing I remember of my past life.
Erin, came to the gym looking for me, because she had to be at work in about ½ an hour, when she got to the gym, she could see people gathered around some poor woman lying on the floor, and it took a couple of minutes to register that it was me!
Meanwhile, the receptionist at the gym (who used to be a nurse (Thank God!) and told the operator that she thought that I was having a stroke) had called an ambulance for me (thankfully RNS hospital was a half a kilometre away) and was waiting for it on the median strip outside and I had a glimpse of reason for a couple of seconds before blackness overcame me again, this time for three and ½ weeks.
I ‘came to’ about 2 weeks after I was admitted to the ICU at RNSH with no recollection how I came to be there. I slept in a 4 bedroom room, and again, have no recollection of much at all other than I saw my ex-husband, daughters, mother, sisters, and I didn’t know where I was, what was happening and time just seemed to stand still.
After a couple of weeks, I was transferred to Royal Rehabilitation at North Ryde, another town near Sydney, Australia.
1.
