‘Ey-up!
I saw my
Neurosciences Consultant yesterday. I appreciate quite a few of you out there
care about me, so I thought I’d quickly sum up the 24’54” activity*.
Before I do that, a
quick line to say I was truly impressed with the revamped and expanded Southmead Hospital.
Only by googling now do I see it cost £430m. I’m no construction expert, so I
can’t tell you whether that is a reasonable price for the end result. What I
can tell you is that the campus-like atmosphere is very welcoming and
reassuring, something which patients going in for tests or surgery will
appreciate more than I did going in for what was, ultimately, a chat.
So… as for that chat…
…I’m always grateful
for an early appointment. That said, I did lie awake briefly at 2am wondering
whether it truly was an 8 o’clocker, or whether I’d got it wrong and we’d be
there an hour early… fortunately it was and I wasn’t, so we weren’t. My
consultant was twenty-five minutes late, which is less than last time: small
progress, but progress nonetheless. At least she didn’t use getting her
daughter ready as an excuse this time, which meant Karen didn’t have to bite
her tongue about getting two boys ready and dropping them off at a child minder’s
so that they could get to school…
Our appointment
started as you’d expect: my consultant said “Good morning”, I replied “Good
afternoon”. I’m not sure she got it. I’ve been seeing her for over a decade
now, and still she rarely gets my wit, humour and sarcasm. OK, my sarcasm.
Might be a language thing: she’s Polish. These highly-qualified Polish neurosciences
experts, coming over here, stealing our jobs..!
She acknowledged the
letter I sent her in February. Only, as I pointed out, I hadn’t written to her
in February: I’d done so in April and indeed last week. She asked me when my
seizures had been. Fortunately for me I had a copy of the letter she’d
acknowledged last week and said we’d discuss right in front of me, and
fortuitously this featured the dates of my three post-op seizures. Honestly: it’s
amazing how coincidence can work in your favour sometimes!
She then tried to
bring up an MRI scan on screen. For some reason, she couldn’t find the one she
was after: a student was in the room and tried to help her navigate her way
through the software, again without success. Once she told me she was after my
post-op scan, I was able to enlighten her: “I’ve never had a post-op scan”.
“How peculiar!”, she
pointed out, as if jumping out of a Jane Austen novel. “They are usually
scheduled right after the surgery”. She duly indicated this would be done by someone
else, which makes sense. And I did remarkably well by not pointing out that I’ve
been seeing her for almost three years since and she’s never looked for my post-op
scan and thus discovered its inexistence. I gave up on pointing out such minor
details to her a while back. She booked one in, we moved on.
Whilst she’d not
spotted the details of my last three seizures in last week’s letter, she had
read the paragraph about my ‘suggestion’ I come off the meds, on the basis we
appear to have tried everything else. It wasn’t a course of action I was
suggesting with any conviction, rather it was a conversation I wanted to ensure
we had: and I thought that proposing a week-by-week time-frame would at least
stimulate that. It did. The conversation was brief but genuinely satisfactory.
See, I’ve taken anti-epilepsy meds all my life: it’s second nature. I don’t
mind taking them: what I did want to discuss was my surgeon’s comment that
taking them after a positive operation could actually cause a relapse, as the
drugs would have to find something to do now that the ‘issue’ they were looking
to control was no longer there, and that this could have a backlash. She
laughed off the comment, saying I’d probably misheard the comment. I know I
heard it right three years ago: and, even though surgery slightly impacted my vision
out of the upper left quadrant of my left eye, I could see Karen’s facial
expression back me up. I could have offered to mail her my underhand audio recording
of that conversation with the surgeon, but even I’m not that bad. She seems
happy enough that carrying on taking my meds can’t do any harm and I’m happy
enough to go along with that. If nowt else it’ll reassure those ‘around’ me, even
if some more emotionally than physically so – such as Mother, whom I’d told
over the weekend I’d be raising the topic. “Well what if you have a really bad
seizure and end up paralysed?” Fair point, I guess.
The consultant (whose
name I do know, but figure deserves some sort of anonymity out of courtesy –
doctor:patient confidentiality and all that…) then enquired about my two 2014
seizures and as to their nature. Now, to me, an imbecile lacking in any medical
knowledge (and I openly admit I should know more about epilepsy than I do),
asking someone about the fit they have had is just plain unfair: I’m too busy
being unconscious at the time to recall anything. Not the exact words I used,
but she got the gist. “Was there anyone with you?”
“Oh, thousands. For
the first one. About a hundred for the second”.
Again, I could just
about make out Karen’s expression. A mixture of appreciation and despair. The
consultant asked for a clarification, which I gladly provided…
“I had the first one
whilst running
a marathon”. To which I had hinted in my letter of April 7, by writing: “It was whilst running the Greater
Manchester Marathon that yesterday’s seizure occurred, 20.6mi and 2h29’ into
the 26.2mi run – therefore around 11:30am based on my GPS record”. Maybe I
should try to be more specific next time…
…we swiftly moved on
to the second one. Having already told her that had also been during a run, I
put her at ease by commenting I was only running a 5k that time. Commenting on
my underplaying of a 5k, she asked if I realised that for the people in the
room ‘exercise’ “probably means sitting on a couch watching TV”. Seems like I’ve
finally found a medical professional who doesn’t bother with exercise, then..!
I probably should have invited her to Little Stoke parkrun, but
didn’t bother.
I then quoted the
paramedic who attended to me in Manchester, who asked me if I had any more runs
planned. When I told him I was set to run 53mi three weeks later, he answered
that I “should be OK”. My consultant jokingly questioned the epilepsy expertise
of a paramedic; I just pointed out he was a Northerner. Again, probably wasted
on her. I can but try.
She spotted a link.
It’s a fairly obvious one, one that anyone aware of my seizures during Greater
Manchester Marathon and parkrun will have noticed. I certainly have. Whilst the
former was 8.45 times longer, both runs were high-intensity. I was going for PBs
at both. My brain was working hard in Manchester as it was at Little Stoke. And
I accept that might have been a factor. Which, equally, is why I was never
overly concerned about the Highland
Fling: yes, it was 53mi but no, it wasn’t high intensity. So I promised her
I’d get back to her in ten days’ time, after Chester Marathon…
Am I worried about
Chester?
No more than I was
before.
Will I take it any
easier?
Physically? No. It’s a race. It’s
me against the clock, but it’s still a race. If it were just about running
26.2mi, I’d go off and do it on my own before work. It’s about me doing the
best I can.
Will I ever enter
another marathon if things go wrong in Chester?
Now… that’s an
interesting question.
And not one I can
answer, right now. It’s tempting to say no, but then a) I don’t know how I’d feel
and b) I’m already signed up for Greater Manchester 2015, as a result of
signing up twice (without even finishing once) for last April’s.
But look, all jokes
aside: I don’t want to go into a marathon thinking it’s likely I’ll pass out. I’ll
always allow for the possibility, as I do every time I get out of bed. But if
it starts being more than just an average possibility, it wouldn’t be fair. Not
so much on me (I can live with the odd foot-long scar), but on those around me:
on my friends with whom I run, on the paramedics who are busy enough as it is –
and, last but not least, on my relatives waiting to find out how I’ve got on.
Some say I’m brave, I say I’m determined: regardless, it’s a fine line to
outright stupidity, and one of which I’m keen to stay on the right side.
And besides, I wouldn’t
have to give up running. I wouldn’t stop streaking, to be honest. I’d just have
to reconsider my racing calendar, that’s all. Even when factoring in seizures, running has done me far more good than harm. Less high-intensity stuff, more
ultras. Which is what my 2015 calendar is looking like anyway…
…and let’s be clear
about this: when talking about ‘intensity’, we’re talking about the mind. Obviously
there can be links with physical intensity, which can impact the mind: but it
does not mean I can’t go off and run silly distances. I just have to take it
easy without taking it slow.
Therein lies a
challenge for me. I know I get intense. You know I get intense. I know getting
intense doesn’t equate to performance improvement, that being more relaxed
would probably help. You, hopefully, know I’m more relaxed now than I used to
be. If you ever saw me on a tennis court, you know where I’m coming from… and
hopefully that journey’s not over. I can relax more and more and run the whole 26.2,
not just the first 20.5.
Disclaimer: the consultant
did add that it could all be unrelated, as my seizures are ‘random’. Which isn’t
helpful, but maybe helps me back up my claim that there is no point in me just
sitting on my backside watching TV like a neurosciences consultant might.
There you go. Oh, the
appointment finished as you’d probably expect, too: she said “Goodbye”, I said “Merry
Christmas”. As you do.
* no, I’m not logging
it on Strava, Mike!
Update:
An hour after I posted this, Southmead rang to set an appointment for the MRI. “We
can do Sunday” – i.e. the day after tomorrow…
…”I’m
busy Sunday. And I’ll be out of the country for most of October. How’s November
looking?”
Sometimes
you can just tell when something’s not that urgent – which this can’t be, given
it should have been done three years. You can tell because it only takes a
minute to sort out. Whereas the urgent stuff…
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