12-18-2020, 08:02 AM
A medical event, from my own personal experience..
I jumped out of the shower at home and noticed I was getting a headache. Nothing too serious, but strong enough for me to swallow a couple of Neurophen. I got dressed, and went out to the car with my then girlfriend. We started driving, and about 5 minutes later, I started thinking of a couple of friends of mine, and something they'd done recently. Except....the friends didn't exist. Nor did whatever it was they'd done. I started to tell the gf about the friends. But.....what I was saying, while coherent and making perfect sense, didn't match the thought that was going through my head. I was talking about completely different people. Who also didn't exist. She had no idea who I was talking about, and told me. This brought on a little confusion on my part, as I struggled to understand firstly why I was thinking about people who did not exist, but also why I was telling her about different people who also didn't exist. Still, I shrugged it off and continued driving.
All was going ok for about another 10 minutes or so, then I almost rear-ended someone. Didn't give that much thought either...it can happen, after all. But then it happened again. My reactions were slowing, but I didn't quite realise. A discussion with my gf ensued, and she convinced me to pull over and let her drive.
At this point, we were still going to our original destination. Given she wasn't a local, she asked me to direct her. I missed a street we were supposed to turn down, but again, thought nothing of it. It was easy to get her back onto the road we needed to be on, although it seemed to take a bit longer than usual for me to tell her where to turn. A little more confusion set in....why was it taking so long?
After about another 5 minutes or so, she pulled into a service station and called 000. I was having a lot of difficulty speaking by now, and was showing some facial droop. She asked the operator where the nearest hospital was, but not knowing where she was, it fell upon me to tell her. Which I did, but not without great difficulty. I then managed to guide her to the hospital, where we went into the Emergency Department.
From there, I can remember everything up to the point where I fell asleep (or did they knock me out?) after being checked in.
So, what is the point of all this?
A medical event doesn't just turn out the lights. It can creep up on you, and you don't even realise it's happening. You don't realise your decision-making process is suffering. You don't realise you're losing functionality....until it's too late.
Six months prior to mine, I had passed a Class 1 with no problem...
I jumped out of the shower at home and noticed I was getting a headache. Nothing too serious, but strong enough for me to swallow a couple of Neurophen. I got dressed, and went out to the car with my then girlfriend. We started driving, and about 5 minutes later, I started thinking of a couple of friends of mine, and something they'd done recently. Except....the friends didn't exist. Nor did whatever it was they'd done. I started to tell the gf about the friends. But.....what I was saying, while coherent and making perfect sense, didn't match the thought that was going through my head. I was talking about completely different people. Who also didn't exist. She had no idea who I was talking about, and told me. This brought on a little confusion on my part, as I struggled to understand firstly why I was thinking about people who did not exist, but also why I was telling her about different people who also didn't exist. Still, I shrugged it off and continued driving.
All was going ok for about another 10 minutes or so, then I almost rear-ended someone. Didn't give that much thought either...it can happen, after all. But then it happened again. My reactions were slowing, but I didn't quite realise. A discussion with my gf ensued, and she convinced me to pull over and let her drive.
At this point, we were still going to our original destination. Given she wasn't a local, she asked me to direct her. I missed a street we were supposed to turn down, but again, thought nothing of it. It was easy to get her back onto the road we needed to be on, although it seemed to take a bit longer than usual for me to tell her where to turn. A little more confusion set in....why was it taking so long?
After about another 5 minutes or so, she pulled into a service station and called 000. I was having a lot of difficulty speaking by now, and was showing some facial droop. She asked the operator where the nearest hospital was, but not knowing where she was, it fell upon me to tell her. Which I did, but not without great difficulty. I then managed to guide her to the hospital, where we went into the Emergency Department.
From there, I can remember everything up to the point where I fell asleep (or did they knock me out?) after being checked in.
So, what is the point of all this?
A medical event doesn't just turn out the lights. It can creep up on you, and you don't even realise it's happening. You don't realise your decision-making process is suffering. You don't realise you're losing functionality....until it's too late.
Six months prior to mine, I had passed a Class 1 with no problem...