Back from the edge
I’m shopping (12th August) and as I approach the checkout the small items I’m holding in my right hand fall to the floor. Confused I try and pick them up and can’t. My right hand and arm have disconnected from the drive-train.
Doctor..XRays..Osteoarthritis in the neck from a thousand cold bivouacs..pinched nerves…Neurologist referral to confirm..go home..get used to it.
I accept the news and drive 600 kms to a wedding where I am billed to play ‘Marie’s Wedding’ on the bagpipes.
I can’t. My right hand is still in neutral.
I drive further up to Carnarvon Gorge and work for a week helping a local boy?s college run a camp for teenage boys.
My right hand is now re-connected to the drive train but the clutch is slipping.
Drive back 1200 kms.
I arrive at the local Veterans Affairs Hospital for my specialist appointment with an Associate Professor who destroys my erroneously based confidence by bypassing all ‘Osteoarthritis’ type questions and going straight to ‘Stroke’ type questions.
My blood runs cold. Driving 2,500 km after a Transient Ischemic Attack, aka a mini stroke, is not conducive to longevity and worse, could have damaged my beloved V8 Discovery.
Two weeks of every test known to man and machines tell their human operators that I have an 80% blockage in my left Carotid artery and something had better be done about it.
Quickly.
Three hours after confirmation I’m talking to two specialist surgeons and they’re describing how they are going to slit my throat and fix the problem.
Three days later I’m on the operating table and five days after surgery I am at home writing this post and working on some funny one-liners to handle the ‘Jesus! What?s that scar” type exclamations when I venture back into polite society. I currently look like a reject from a B-Grade Frankenstein movie.
And if my little story isn’t the greatest ever reflection on the standards of the Australian Veterans ‘Repair and Maintenance’ program then I don’t know what is.
Being the left carotid artery, my right (wing) brain was under threat but I’m happy, deliriously so in fact, to announce all is in order.
But as I drift off to sleep each night when there are no books, computers or conversations to distract me, I shudder and have trouble engaging my ‘fantasy-drive’ that for years has lifted me from low nights and rocky days.
It’s a long fall from where I’ve been but as my first Platoon Sergeant used to say “Keep moving soldier, I’ll tell you when you?re tired”.
Should be my old cocky self in a day or two and by then it should be two out of three for us right wingers. Bush will be orating poorly while leading well and my world will be in order.
Facebook
Twitter
Quite a scare indeed and a reminder, once again, of our humaness! Glad to hear you’re doing well…..rest up.
I had some bodily repairs [hernia] done at a V.A. hospital and I think a better job was done there than what I’ve heard of in the civilian world.
A rapid and thorough recovery wish from yours truly
Scary stuff indeed, I’m glad to hear you are on the mend.
I went through a similar scare (minor blocked artery in the heart) a few months ago, so I sympathise totally – but keep in mind, you can fight this stuff with sensible diet and exercise (and I swore I’d never run again, when I got out!).
Look on it as a positive, you got a warning shot and have time to act on it, lots of people don’t get that second chance.
It’ll take more than a spot of clotted cream on some two bit vein to kill an old digger like you, Kev.
It sounds like you’re well on the way to recovery, but best wishes anyway.
Al
Kev. You cannot go just yet as you are the only one of the Class of Dec 67left with all your hair, albeit white/grey.
Stay well.
Kel Ryan
White/Grey be damned. It’s BLONDE you know.
Kev, colour blindness another side effect too? What’s the prescription for that malaise – Grecian 2000?
A nasty scare alright! I know just how you feel I put in a isolation ward and had people speaking to me for three days with masks on cause they throught I had TB (Turned out to be nothing dangererous at all)
Best wishes for a full recovery I enjoy throughly your intelligent well written blog
Hey Kev, glad to hear you are ok, look after yourself you old bastard or else I will be stuck with just Murph and Bikko at the drinks nights, (shudder!!)