I Aten't Dead

Funny thing happened a couple of months ago. And by "funny" I mean "possibly the most annoying and scary thing to happen to me ever". Cue some flashback animation.

Few weeks back, my mum was visiting us. That's not the annoying and scary part. I thought I should point that out early since she reads this sometimes. Hey mum :) Saturday morning, around five o'clock or so, The Other Half is woken up by me rolling around making strange noises. She tried and failed to wake me. Worried that I was having some sort of fit and might choke, she rolled me onto my side. I continued rolling and ended up face down on the floor, cracking my head off the bedside unit on the way down.

Obviously a little concerned, she moved to pick me up. She picked up my head from the floor and was unsurprisingly alarmed when a load of foamy blood came out of my mouth. Turns out I'd bitten through my tongue when I hit the floor, but she didn't know that at the time.

She went to wake my mum in the room across the hall. My mum's been a medical receptionist for nearly 30 years and is about as close to a GP as you can get without an actual PhD. She looked at me and apparently my face looked as if I was having a stroke, so she advised The Other Half to call an ambulance, which she did.

The paramedics arrive a couple of minutes later (a very impressive arrival time, apparently) and start to get the questions out of the way. Any history of seizures, that kind of thing, I assume. I have no memory of this, so I'm going totally on what I've been told. I'm diabetic, so they were worried it could be a hypo, but Herself and my mum aren't convinced because the symptoms are a lot more severe and considerably weirder than any hypo I've had in the past. So they go to work.

Or at least they tried to. Apparently I was fighting the paramedics off. Not content with that, when my mum was trying to appeal to my better nature (I'm sure I have one somewhere), I was threatening her as well, pinned against the wall by her throat, Herself tells me. So they're totally failing to make any progress. 3 paramedics in the house by now (one came by car, the other two by ambulance) and not one of them could get me to calm down enough to take some blood.

In the end, they had to call the police. Paramedics don't have the authority to take someone to hospital by force, but the police do. So that's what they did. So, six in the morning on a Saturday, there's 3 paramedics, 2 police officers, Herself and my mum standing in our bedroom, with not even a partridge in a pear tree to round it off.

The police did eventually manage to talk me down, they tested my blood and it was a fairly un-hypo-y 4.1mmol/l (for the numbers geeks). So then the other questions begin. Somewhat predictably they were on a crusade to get someone to admit I'd done drugs of some kind, but obviously I hadn't. I don't do drugs, and I hardly think I'd be all about getting totally caned while my bloody MOTHER was visiting. But they wouldn't let it go.

I got a CT scan and was wheeled around from department to department all day with none of my tests showing anything other than "confirmed grumpy bastard". I eventually came back to the land of the living once we were in hospital and that's where my own memories of the day actually start.

Eventually they decided I was a lost cause and discharged me as "grumpy but more or less healthy" with nobody any the wiser about what actually happened. Our best guess so far is that although my sugar wasn't in technical hypo territory, that's what it actually was. As a result, I was having a bit of a spazz. When I fell out of bed I could have suffered a mild concussion (since I landed square on my noggin) and from there it sort of spiralled. The hypo then eventually passed and I went back to normal.

I've had weird episodes on that insulin before, and since then I've changed my prescription to a different regime (basal bolus, medical geeks) and a different brand (Lilly, in case they want to sponsor me). Since changing I've actually felt a lot better. Healthwise and actually considerably more cheerful. I'm not sure if it's maybe a coping technique after them taking my driving license away, but I'm liking it so far.

But of course because it was a suspected seizure, I was legally obliged to inform the DVLA who have now taken away my driving license until I get a clean bill of health. Now October 17th is D-day; the 6-month mark after the event, and by their rules if there is no repeat seizure during that time then I can apply for my license back. But I've been referred to neurology and they don't seem to think it was a seizure in the first place. If that's true, I'm going to have to work on the doctors using logic, since if it wasn't a seizure then the seizure rules shouldn't apply so I should get my license back early. We'll see.

Of course now I don't have the car I'm back on public transport, which is even worse than I remember it. Slow, crowded, annoying, stops miles away from where you want to go. The all-clear can't come fast enough.

So yeah, that was interesting. Definitely the most bizarre episode I've ever had. I have very little memory of the entire morning, with just flashes here and there. I remember hitting the ground with my face. I remember standing in my bedroom refusing to go with anyone. I remember sitting in the ambulance outside the house. But that's about it. Very strange indeed.

I do like to be special...