A brief history 

Hi my name is Claire,I am 37yrs old.

On the 19th May 2015 aged 34 I suffered a brain aneurysm while at work.

Due to complications it resulted in me temporarily loosing the use of the right side of my body. As I am right handed that is a right pain in the backside!!

I have decided to write this blog to hopefully help myself and others going through the same or a similar situation.

The first operation to clip the aneurysm on Friday 22nd May (my parents 39th wedding anniversary) was a success and all was fine, although I was still in a lot of pain.

In the early hours of Monday 25th May one of the nurses noticed that I was struggling to hold a cup of water. I was having what is called a Vasospasm (stroke like symptoms). Basically my brain believed I was still bleeding because of the amount of blood that was still surrounding my brain so it cut off the blood supply to that area.  This affected my speech area of my brain.

I was then taken to ICU where my heart was pumped with adrenalin to get as much oxygenated blood to my brain. But on the Tuesday night I had developed a chest infection because of all the adrenaline that was being pumped through my system it was clogging up the alveoli in my lungs. I was then put into a medically induced coma and transferred to AICU where I spent the next five days battling my chest infection and battling to stay alive. I was brought out of my Sunday 31st May (my nieces 6th birthday).  I was transferred back to ICU on Tuesday 2nd June where over the next seven days I grew stronger and I was slowly weened off of all my medication so that I could move back onto a normal ward. Tuesday 9th June in the evening I was transferred back onto neurological ward where I began my physio and my speech and language therapy.  On Saturday 20th June (my dads birthday) I was transferred to Harlow hospital as it was nearer to my home.

I spent 10 days at Harlow where I received physioand occupational therapy (OT) to increase movement in my right arm and a leg.  Speech and language therapy (SL) help me learn to read and write. I was then moved to a nursing home on 30th June until Friday 3rd July when a bed was available at Danesbury Neurological Centre in Welwyn.

I was at Danesbury for 7weeks until Thursday 20th August (my aunties birthday) where I had intense physio, OT and SL. A became more conscious of keeping a diary while I was here because of so many changes that I went through in such a small amount of time I didn’t write every day because some days were worse then others and some days it was all too much for me to deal with.