Stephen about an hour before the seizure

Stephen in hospital the day after

On Saturday the 19th December we went for a walk across the bridge to the town adjacent to Brandys – Stara Boleslav. We were looking in particular for the Wenceslas Cathedral. The town has a couple of beautiful old churches close to the town square. It was a very misty day at first, with quite low visibility. We found a small cafe in the square where we had coffee and cake.

We then walked back across the bridge and into Brandys. There is a Christmas market, with little stalls selling the usual stuff of markets, plus a circle for pony rides and a tiny hand cranked carousel. The last two are very popular for the little ones.

We arrived home at around 2.30 and had a small lunch. We had booked ourselves in to have a meal at De Parade in the evening. Lemir, David’s uncle, gave us his phone number. We thought a rest after our long walk would be a good idea – we only have one room in the apartment, and I was on the bed and Stephen sitting on the couch, as he normally does when having an afternoon rest.

I woke up to him shouting. I saw that he was moving about violently and thought at first that he was having a heart attack, especially as he seemed to be protecting his chest. Then I saw his face and realised it was a seizure. Although I have seen our client’s have seizures they are usually much milder. I tried to time it – I think the tonic-clonic phase lasted about 5 or 6 minutes and started at about 3.15 p.m. Then he started to slump, breathing heavily and drooling. He was not responsive to my words or touch at all. I was trembling and very frightened indeed. The initial recovery phase took about 30 minutes.

Phoning Lemir was the only thing I could think of, as I could not contact emergency services myself. He and his wife responded right away and called an ambulance. I spoke with emergency services, giving them our address.

I then tried to think of the timing so that I could report what had happened. Lemir and his wife arrived at about the same time as the paramedics. By then we seemed to be able to get through to Stephen a bit, although he wanted to go to sleep. The paramedic confirmed that it would be OK for him to sleep, but Lemir wanted him to be awake.

To get him into the ambulance they had to get him on his feet and go down in the lift holding him upright. At the front entrance they put him on the stretcher. Lemir and Misa drove me the short distance to our local hospital – about 400 metres away. Stephen was able to respond to questions. Stephen asked to go to the toilet and had a major bowel movement. This could have happened during the seizure, but he was fortunate that he did not wet or soil himself.

He was given something to relax him and put on a drip. They took blood tests and waited for the results, whilst I filled in paperwork. Lemir and his wife had been on their way out of the town, but they were there long enough to help pay for the ambulance. At this stage I was having to do a lot of paperwork and pay for things upfront in cash.

The doctor decided to send him to the specialist neurological clinic at a major hospital in Prague. That meant another ambulance and payment upfront. They suggested I follow in a taxi as it would be cheaper than going with Stephen. I went into town to get some more money, then caught a taxi. I arrived at the new hospital shortly after Stephen. At this stage, he could get up if asked. They gave him a CT scan and also checked his AF signs. He was able to confirm that he is in constant AF, so nothing unusual really.

They decided to keep him in hospital for a couple of nights as he could not have the EEG until Monday. He has been fairly comfortable in hospital with the adjustable bed helping him to position himself to cope with headache and nausea. He is able to eat some of each meal.

Stephen has no memory of what happened. The first thing he remembers was Lemir telling him he should stay awake.

I went home quite late and was very anxious about being alone in the apartment where I had seen Stephen in such a terrible state. However, because I had also seen him recovered, it didn’t feel too bad. I slept, but had a long awake time in the middle. Robyne was awake by then, so I got in touch with her using Facebook messenger. I also communicated with Lesley. George has been keeping in contact as well and said we can ask him for help at any time.

Sunday morning I spoke with Mum as it is our usual time. Robyne, Marie and Geoff had been visiting and I hoped they were still there, but they had all gone home. I’m not sure Mum really took it all in, but as I had chided her a few weeks ago for not letting us know she had a bad fall I didn’t think I should keep it from her. Robyne said that Jamie and Tracy have told her that Mum does not appear to be her usual self since the fall.

With Matthew – again it was our normal time to communicate – so I rang up and spoke with Hidde. Brian and Wendy had just left after visiting him, so it was a good time to say that we couldn’t get in touch and would contact him on Tuesday. I told Hidde what had happened, but did not think I could talk with Matt and pretend that everything was OK.

I had packed up some things to take to Stephen, and then walked over to the town square to get some more money. At that stage I thought I would have to keep paying for everything in cash.

I then walked to De Parade. It wasn’t open, but the staff knew me and opened the door to let me in. He rang a taxi for me and I was able to wait in the warm restaurant for it to arrive.

Yesterday Stephen had a headache most of the day, and some nausea. He was happy enough to just rest and take things in. On the taxi ride home I found that the taxi driver lived in the same block of units as us. We arranged to meet in the morning at 9.00 a.m. to take me back to the hospital. Even so, Stephen had had the EEG before I arrived. He has had nausea most of today, still able to eat, but not fancying much.

We have been waiting since about 10.00 a.m. for the doctor to come and talk with him about the results of the EEG. A junior doctor has confirmed that he will have to stay in for another 24 hrs.

The hospital have asked me to get in touch with our insurer so that they can being to deal with them. I had planned to get in touch anyway today.

I have spoken with Allianz, and also with the hospital accounts department, and hopefully things are getting underway. Yesterday I found a demountable selling pizza slices for my lunch, but today went up the street to a bakery. There is a machine downstairs which is good for cold drinks, I got a hot drink there yesterday, but don’t seem to be able to get a hot drink from the machine today. I forgot to mention that Stephen was hungry on Saturday evening, but it was too late to get any hospital food. I was able to get him a roll from the machine and he ate the lot.

According to Wikepedia, older adults have a reasonable chance of having a seizure once in their lives with no obvious trigger.

I think it has been the sheer physical exertion of this trip. Not having a car meant we were doing a tremendous amount of walking during the day, with an uphill slope on the way back to the apartment in Croydon. He wouldn’t catch the tram as it would cost us $6 for a one stop ride. We went out on a long walk on that Saturday. We came back, had some food, and were resting when it happened. That’s the best I can come up with.

We also became very stressed the previous day when we drove about 25 kilometres to a nearby town. We shared the driving, but we have to be alert all of the time – both of us – getting used to driving on the other side and the manual controls and dealing with different road signs and rules. The time away as a whole has involved a tremendous amount of physical and mental energy – which has its upsides of course, but can be overstimulating.

Lesley is sceptical of this theory, since all the walking has also made us very fit. But, there is getting reasonable exercise, and there is walking to the point of utter exhaustion. We were coming back from doing some shopping one day. I had forged ahead because I was so tired and wanted the effort to be over, but Stephen had to stop to have a little break. A young woman offered to help him get the bags to our building and he accepted her help.

Still, I found it helpful to speak with her on Saturday evening because she reminded me that Mark has had a one off seizure and has been OK since it happened. Stephen thinks it was about four years ago.

There may be no actual trigger for the seizure, but there is family history (his mother and younger brother) of having one off seizures, which means there may be a family vulnerability. We were advised by the doctor on Saturday evening that Stephen should have a MRI on his return to Australia.

It is now after 3.00 p.m. and we have still not heard from the doctor about the results of the EEG.

We have not made a decision about going home early at this stage.

This is our morning. Sunshine and fog.

We’ve had a lazy time so far, having cups of tea, then a leisurely breakfast of eggs and toast.

I think it’s about 8 degrees outside. Crisp and nice. We are still having maximums of up to 10 degrees and I’ve switched back to my lighter jacket as I was finding the long padded one too hot. And we are lovely and warm in the little studio apartment. It has normal central heating (radiators) which work much better than the air heated system we had in England.

We didn’t actually set out to do more than try out the bus/train connections and wander around a bit to see if we could work out where things were. We walked to the town square to catch our bus. Stephen approached a couple to ask about buses to Prague and the man spoke a little German, so we were able to get some help. They also helped us with getting our ticket on the Metro.

The city is different in winter with the Christmas markets in full swing. We went to the Staromestske Namesti market and walked around that area.

We had a modest sort of lunch and coffees and a shared strudel later. The coffees were excellent, the strudel not too sweet, but not wonderful.

We became very tired and wandering around can be exasperating, but it’s the only way to get oriented to a new city. We had a bit of difficulty finding the bus stand for coming home, but a couple of people helped us out.

We had some leftovers with pasta, and a small slice of David’s cake with yogurt, honey and banana.

We’ve decided that we need a plan for the next four weeks. Stephen wants to go to a couple of shows at theatres we haven’t been to before. I’ve suggested we drive into the city and stay for a couple of nights. The long journey home after dark, even if we take the car as far as the Metro, is not appealing.

The bright side is that bus and train fares are cheap, especially after England. Having food and coffees when we are out is also much cheaper.

Yesterday afternoon we met up with David again briefly to go through some stuff, then he came back later to take us to his Uncle’s restaurant where we were to pick up our car. It is a hire car, David says he’s got a very good deal and that he has been renting his car from the company for two years and it works out cheaper than buying a car. We have to take his word on it, but we are delighted with the new little Skoda Hatchback. We had coffee at the restaurant, and later a meal, trying to talk with David whilst he kept disappearing to return farewell calls to his friends. He travels quite a bit and is doing part time study and part time working with George in the business.

Feeling clever

Stephen with Skoda

Driving home was a bit tough, we didn’t really get a good handover and simple things like adjusting the seats to suit driving were difficult. Also, it is ages since we have driven manual cars, so even though we drove them for many years we have to adjust.

Still, we managed to get home safely – it’s only about 500 metres or so. I took first ‘turn’ last night and today we have taken turns again, so that we both can get comfortable with driving it. It’s approximately 30 years since I’ve driven on the right hand side of the road, it helps to have a car with left hand drive – not like the camper van I drove back then which we brought to Europe from England.

This morning we went down to the river, only about 2 kilometres away. It was curiously bleak – a combination of a cold grey day and not very picturesque river at this point. However, we were so interested in everything that the very bleakness was appealing.

The architecture is very interesting and we walk through the grounds of a mansion, before deciding it was time for coffee (so we could use toilets). The soup was inexpensive, so we then decided to have lunch, tomato soup and mint tea. This is the third restaurant we have been in here in Brandys – the quality is quite amazing in a way – you don’t expect the sophistication of the interiors and the menus – just from looking at the outside. Each time, menus have had English versions to make it easy for us.

Feeling fulfilled, we then drive to the local Tesco which David had shown us. Here we can buy most of the things we could buy ing England and Australia. So catering for ourselves is going to be quite easy, despite the temptation to rely on cheap and good food in restaurants.

We came home to have more of David’s lovely cake with fruit, apricot jam, and yogurt. Today David and his grandmother fly together to meet up with George and Hana and stay in our house. Quite a full house, with only official sleeping for three people. I suggested that the grandmother would find the bed in my study very comfortable and for him there is a couch in the other study, or camp stretcher beds in the storeroom.

We are feeling quite spoiled with our little apartment and car and the interesting country (Czech Republic) to explore.

We have a washing machine that includes a dryer – I find that the wash cycle I use tends to do some drying afterwards, then we put the clothes on a horse. Although it is cold and damp outside, it is very dry inside, probably because of the central heating, so clothes won’t take long to finish drying.

Tonight I’ve been learning to use the induction cooktop – I downloaded the manual from the internet, thank goodness as it isn’t intuitive on this model. We have a small dishwasher that is good for about two meals for two people before you need to run it – a very useful size actually.

We have not done very much today – so far. We walked into the village centre and went to Vodafone to get SIM cards for our iPhones and my iPad mini. We paid a little extra to get coverage in case we go to Germany for a few days.

Then we did a bit more shopping, this time for food for tonight’s dinner. David came over for the installation of a new water meter and showed us how some things work. The plan is that he will be back later for when our hire car arrives. I must admit I like the idea of having a hire car as not so awful if it gets a bump or two.

I have put my first load of washing on, after David showed me the best settings. The washing machine is also a dryer, but we have an airer and the central heating makes the air very dry, so I will continue to use that method most of the time. Our clothes are wearing out already, just from being a small set of things that we use all the time. Using a dryer makes that worse. But it will be handy for an emergency.

We enjoyed our little walk to the village again today, it is quite sweet. This place is too small to be a town – or perhaps that’s just the part we have seen.

We slept well on the bed which is not really a double bed, just a bit smaller. However, it is only slightly smaller than our bed in the caravan. We had to turn off the heating and open a window to be comfortable. Is it something about coming from a hot country that we like to be cool rather than warm.

These shot show the interior of the studio apartment, just one room with a kitchen.

As well, there is a hall with a wardrobe and coat rack, and a bathroom/laundry/toilet combination. Stephen is using the hallway for reading as the lighting is better than the living room/bedroom.

And that is it! We are on the fifth floor and there is a small lift. The apartment blocks here are concrete and mostly painted to make them look more appealing. The interiors have been renovated with modern double glazed windows and doors.

That’s what it’s like going across Europe by coach.

We have arrived safely here in Brandys (for short). We were warmly welcomed by David who has kindly allowed us to stay in his little apartment whilst he is away. We are very tired indeed after our long bus ride (21 hours from London to Prague). We had a meal in a little restaurant, did some shopping, and then came home to have showers and get ready for bed. David had made us a cake and we had some with yogurt when we got back home.

I’m too tired to write much in my blog tonight. We found it very interesting to travel here by coach. David will catch up with us tomorrow for coffee and to introduce us to the car we will have whilst we stay here.

The photo was taken in the town square here at Brandys.

This is Stephen’s email to his family:

Hello everyone
We have survived the 22 hour bus trip. It wasn’t too bad, helped by the bus not being crowded and Susan and I each had our own double seat. Travelling through the tunnel was very interesting, the bus is inside a railway carriage. I was able to get out and walk around. Then driving through Belgium and Germany in the middle of the night was a bit dream-like. We had to change buses at 4:30 am in Frankfurt. The first bus waited until the second appeared, although we did our waiting on the pavement. We had three very short breaks of 15 mins, apart from the 35 mins in the tunnel, so the on-board toilet is essential. Also bring your own food.
Now we are in our apartment in a town 35 mins out of Prague, and it is 5 degrees and cold, with some specks of rain. The apartment, although small, is comfortable and WARM! We were spoilt in London. Now we have to cope with not knowing the language, no BBC TV.
Lesley, George and Hana will be arriving on Thursday morning, 17 December as previously advised. The plane lands at 7:45 am I believe.There should be two sets of keys in the house, one on the kitchen bench, one on the writing table near the front door. We should be able to give them these two sets. The keys to the car are in the top draw of that desk, could you get these out as well? One set has a remote. I think they only need one car key, unless they ask for a second. There is another remote in the car in the central compartment between the driver and front passenger.
If you are feeling energetic there could be some palm branches needing binning, but maybe Gary kept on top of them. Also George may enjoy doing some cleaning up, at least he mentioned that last time, as he doesn’t have a garden.
With three opera houses in Prague I should be happy. Also we may visit Berlin and Kraków.
Love
Stephen and Susan

After spending time at the Thames Barrier we caught a bus to East Greenich, home of the 02 stadium complex. We found the area so interesting that we spent time walking around, taking advantage of the twilight. A second very modern part of London, with interesting architecture:

We then went by Tube, changing once, to the V&A, where we had dinner. We chose different food and shared, a way to enjoy different tastes.

According to my iPhone we walked nearly 12 kilometres. Considering I had worked up feeling unwell, this was pretty amazing. It was fairly cold and fresh in the open air, maybe this helped. Plus, I enjoyed what we were doing. Stephen had another chance to look at some galleries before dinner.

We feel, on the whole, that it was a fitting ‘last day in London’, taking advantage of the complex transport system to do quite a lot of exploring in one day. We kept finding ourselves being drawn back to the river.

One last photo, I took a photo of this last time we were at the V&A, but it worked better with my 35mm 2.8 lens.

Today, Saturday, is a day of packing up and sorting things out. We feel quite excited about going on the next stage of our adventure. We rang Matthew and Mum today so that we can concentrate on getting ready tomorrow morning. It is good to be leaving after lunch so that we don’t have to get up very early in the morning to get the washing done (sheets, towels, etc.) which will be left on the drying horse for the next exchangee to sort out. We will do a little shopping for some basics for them this evening.

Putting it simply, we travelled to Gloucester on Monday and travelled back on Wednesday. That meant two nights there, staying with Ron. We had our ‘usual’ double bed room, which overlooks the rear garden. Although Ron is cutting back on the number of plants and has put in an artificial lawn, this area is still very attractive.

Melanie and Ron met us at the bus station. They thought we would be coming for lunch, but we had done our usual thing of buying some sandwiches and snack items to eat on the bus. However, we joined them for fruit mince pies and a cup of tea. After resting up for rest of the afternoon we went out to dinner with Melanie and Mark at a nearby pub. All good, except that I had too much food and had a rather uncomfortable night. But, still enjoyed sleeping in the comfortable little room.

On Tuesday we got up rather late, and after breakfast, etc. we went out to see if we could have a walk along the canal. Ron had heard that it was possible to see along the canal from a Sainsbury’s store. The building is located right on the canal, with a cafe on the second floor that is so well located that it could be a modern style restaurant. The store stocks not just food and stuff, but clothes and stationery, so very useful. We arrived in sunshine, then a squall came through, quite windy and wet for a little while, with gulls flying and enjoying riding the wind.

Then it seemed to be fine again and Stephen and I went for a short walk whilst Ron did some shopping. We came back when the rain became persistent. Stephen got some toothpaste and I had a wander through the store.

Then we went to the Gloucester Museum and found out about the early times in the town, including the Roman period. I had my photo taken in Brenda’s chair (she had a little sleep there when she and Graham visited the Museum). Then home for lunch and a rest.

We went over to see Alan and Karen at about 5.30 p.m. They had had a very tiring day, but brightened up for our visit. Barney went a little crazy and I was delighted to see him so well as I had been reading about his illness and recovery on Facebook.

Then we went out again for dinner at a Carvery – nice food, and I shared a desert with Stephen so I did not overeat this time, or at least, not to the point of discomfort. But, still didn’t sleep well. Odd, because I feel far more at home at Ron’s place than I do here in Croydon. Something about being in a real home.

The hospitality was, as usual, quite marvellous and we enjoyed ourselves very much. The family have their problems and losses (Ivy was alive the first time we stayed there – I’m so glad we had a chance to meet her).

Yesterday morning we went for a walk along a sort of stream that leads down the balancing pond. There are floods in nearby Tewksbury and there is a slight possibility that there could be flooding in Gloucester, but the water in the balancing pond is quite low, so I think it could handle a moderate sized flood if necessary. A very attractive area with a couple of white swans showing off, as well as ducks and seagulls.

We enjoyed both coach rides – having food on board and having little sleeps helps to pass the time – plus being able to see the countryside along the way. We had coffee at a Neros, then home on the train to East Croydon.

This morning (Thursday) we have done a bit of shopping, I’ve done a survey online for Matthew, I wrote to the ANZ bank to complain about texts regarding non payment of $25.00 on the credit card I closed recently, and then catching up with this blog.

This morning we got up early to head off to Gloucester. We are going to stay with Ron, but also catch up with Melanie and Karen and their families. Just for two nights.

The photo was taken on Friday at the Christmas Market near Tower Bridge.