I’ve been, both actually, I’ve been to my GP and outpatients. And my GPs have been absolutely fantastic, they really have.

I mean, obviously they’d had a letter from the hospital to say I’d had a stroke and when, when I went to see the GP he, he came out of his office to come and meet me because obviously he didn’t know how badly I’d been affected.

Oh that was good. So they

Yeah.

He call, did you call you in to actually have a chat with you and find out how things were? Or did you make an appointment?

I made an appointment to go and see him.

Right.

Yeah.

OK.

But he was very empathic. Very.

I carried on with the medication. The medication changed slightly. Saw the GP once every three months maybe. The blood pressure was higher than it should have been, high, it was higher than was reasonable so she changed the blood pressure medication.

Oh, that’s right, I had a, the surgery gave me a blood pressure monitor for a week to do three readings a day, so I had 21 readings in the week and it was obviously high, it was about 100, average of I think 160 over 100 which was a little too high for comfort I guess on the long term, long term basis. So I was changed onto two blood pressure pills, like 2mg perindopril and 10mg of, of felodopine and I was taking, I started taking those, I’m still taking those. Been taking them since the last seven or eight years. And I’ve been taking the aspirin. I still take the aspirin. Oh that’s right, and I was prescribed a statin as well, and obviously I had blood tests, at the various times I had blood tests and as a, the result of that test they decided my, my cholesterol was higher than, it wasn’t too high, it was about five or six or something, but they wanted it a bit lower so I went onto 10mg of pravastatin and ever since then I’ve had an annual blood test and I see the doctor twice a year for blood pressure, once a year for the blood test and they check over the blood test results. So I’m monitored on that basis by the local surgery. My cholesterol is quite good. My the bad, the LP, whatever it is, the bad cholesterol is very low, and, I’m sorry, and the good one is higher so that is fine. The blood pressure is very well monitored and controlled and that’s quite acceptable. So no nasty episodes since.

I’m being monitored. Which I’ll, which would not have happened, which I guess would not have happened had the TIAs not happened.

So you’re getting an extra bit of MOT. [laughs] That’s
It could be argued therefore the TIAs were, well I can’t say they were a good thing but in a sense, they in a sense they, it was a warning and since then the monitoring has been very good and, yeah, I’m very happy with the way I’m looked after.

just blood tests, perhaps every twelve months or something, but generally not anything else.

I’ve started to get the repeat prescriptions from the pharmacist, rather than go back and annoy the GP all the time.

Right, so does it feel quite more comfortable to talk to the pharmacist, more casual maybe?

Yes. Yes. It does in a way. Yes, and you don’t need an appointment obviously, and you can just walk in, and in fact some of them are thinking of taking on more medical jobs as such. So yes, I mean, he’s very useful.

Some pharmacies do actually have a little consulting room.

Yes, they do.

I don’t know whether you actuallyor yours is a more casual type of conversation.

It is more casual yes. More casual. They do have one at but there is some
So do you feel as though, if you’ve got an issue or a worry that you could go to the pharmacist?

Yes, yes, that’s right. You could, yes, that’s right. They will think about it and try and help you through. Yes. they’re useful pharmacists.

first of all you had a blood test. Then you go and see a, a nurse and she takes all the details and she tells you all about it. And you now once a week I’ve been going to the hospital to have a blood test to see whether my blood clots are high or low, whether the tablets are going to change. You have to write everything down in the book, in the piece of paper. You have to tell them the change of everything, you know, change the medication, whether you bruise badly after the injection and things like that. it’s just so you’ve got that for the rest of your life. And then she said, All right, you can work up to one in three months But she said there’s not many people that get the three months. Eight weeks between one blood test to the next.

So how do you feel about the prospect of having to keep going through that all the time?

Not very happy about it, but if it means it’s going to keep me going, well, I’ve got to do it, you know. don’t like it, but got to do it.

Are you having regular checkups now, what’s the position now?

Right, position now is, blood, blood is being tested once a week and I’m on a sort of warfarin balancing act at the moment. So I take certain warfarin tablets in different strengths of warfarin tablets and…

I’m on the warfarin trail at the moment, trying to balance out, my target apparently is 2.5 on the, the warfarin scale. I’m not quite sure what, what that’s called but so it means that my blood is tested once a week and I get instant feedback again from whoever analyses the, the blood and it, it is instant. it’s either the same evening or the following morning and, and adjustments are made to the strength of the warfarin that I take.

So how is all this accomplished? Do you go

Right so I
in every day?

Yeah, I go into the GP once a week to the GP’s, you know, to my local practice and blood’s taken there, tested, and as I say, either that very same evening or the following morning I’m fed back by telephone and then later by post as to the adjusted warfarin strength. So at the moment I’m above the level I should be so probably to put it crudely again the blood’s too thin so they’ve reduced the strength of the tablets that I’m taking.

Have you had to have many alterations to this
Every week, yeah. it’s gone up and down and, and changed a little bit very gradual, very minor changes, bit by bit and over the, say 10 weeks, no eight weeks that, since the stroke it, it’s gradually coming into place you know, and it’s gradually getting closer to that 2.5 level.

I’ve had a blood test and it’s all right. My cholesterol is low. I had to phone up for the details and that’s it, they’ve, you know, I don’t have to go to the doctor unless I need a doc, the doctor.

What was the advice? Did you give, get given medication? What happened?

They gave me some, they gave me different… blood pressure tablets, but that was about all really. And I think I didn’t, didn’t get any medical advice as such.

Were you told to take aspirin?

Oh yes, yes of course I was, sorry yes. I got a higher dose of aspirin for the first fourteen days and then I’d gone down onto a higher than normal but slightly lower dose than that now. Yes.

And do you understand what the reason for that is?

Well it keeps the blood thin doesn’t it? Yeah.

And so, I mean I know that you said that you hadn’t really given a kind of proper explanation of the TIA, so would you be able to understand why you need your blood thinned to avoid any further problems or is that something you haven’t really had explained to you?

I haven’t really I don’t think.

Right.

Although from my own knowledge of first aid and that obviously if it’s thinner, it’s easier for the heart to get it through and it stops the heart working so hard and hopefully it won’t get across again.

And so were you also told about you know the likelihood or possibility of, of anything further happening or were you just left to your own devices on that score?

Well apart from the fact of being told that I couldn’t drive for a month. I was virtually left on my own. I wasn’t told, I mean well I read in a leaflet actually that it is possible to have one although it’s you know obviously far from definite or anything else. In fact it’s probably more unlikely now because I’ve been on medication hopefully that will stop any symptoms happening.

Are you still being monitored at all? You know, does the doctor come and check you over
Well
at all? Or
…the only thing is they sometimes they send District Nurse for some blood. Or blood pressure. But that’s about all.

You take medication for that is it still quite high then or does it ever go down a bit? Your blood pressure?

Oh yes, it, I think it does go down, yes. Sometimes the District Nurse turns up and takes the blood pressure and after she says, Oh, it’s not too bad toda.

Right. So it’s variable?

So, yes it, it does vary a bit. I think it’s not too bad at the moment.

I’d like to see more follow ups after you’ve…

…had the initial check. Because, as I say, I’ve had nothing from this from then to now and just to be reassured, you know. I don’t know how quickly things can, well, what I had, came off very quickly and went very quickly but [sighs] I don’t’ know if you, these scans can show more or not, I don’t know, if you had a check up every so often, especially when people have had these sort of problems.

So is there a slight feeling that you’ve been left now that it’s all happened
Yeah.

.. and you’ve got medicated
Yeah, yeah. That’s the thing.

And you’d rather have being monitored a little bit more closely?

Yeah.

For now?

Well, from, say for the first year, six months or a year, you know, so see whether there’s a problem there and be in, you know, be dealt with.

Enid’ Well, the other week, a few weeks ago you said you were going dizzy when you bent down. And it was me that spotted it because I, and I said, Are you dizzy He said, Yes I said, Right, the doctor’s So the doctor looked at his prescriptions and he said, Well, I will take you off this straight away and put you on another one And he said, I’ve been on that since I had my heart by-pass He said, Yes, you probably have He said, Because then in 2001 that was the gold star He said, Now what I’m going to put you on now is the gold star

Are you monitored, do you have to go for appointments and things still?

I have six monthly blood checks but that’s it. OK.

I was in the hospital for three weeks and I would say at least three, possibly four weeks whilst I was still at home recovering, and in between them I would get different feelings and slowly it came back in my leg.

When you were at home recovering, what did that consist of? Did you, were you given things to, that you had to do like physio and stuff, that you carried on
Yeah
doing?

I had physio that came, I think it was twice a week.

Somebody came to the house?

Yeah.

Right.

And occupational therapy, they came.

What was that like? Doing the physio and the occupational therapy?

Doing the exercises that they gave me, I couldn’t really see the point of what they was trying to do. I did them but I can’t see how doing the exercises that they did made it any better or any worse. Because even if I didn’t do them things were still happening and so
Right. So was the same kind of communication issue with the physio and the occupational health people, were they not as good at explaining things as perhaps they could be?

Not really, no.

One of the things I remember being, I forget who told me now, one of the things I remember was [hammering] someone saying that TIAs a warning. If you recover from that, you’ll be OK. But you could have another stroke. I remember that particular point. And yeah, TIA, yeah. it’s a warning.

But you haven’t had anybody talk to you any more about that?

No.

No.

No. No. No. No.

But you are being monitored, you said, by your GP?

Once every 12 months. Once every January I go in for my MOT, for want of a word, and that’s
it’s interesting that there hasn’t been a discussion about that really, between you and your GP? In terms of
Yeah.

.. thinking about, you know, because you were, you’ve been talking about preventative measures really. And it, you know, if there is some kind of idea that it could be a warning?

Well, I was going to say, that, this is, I don’t know whether it’s because, you know, I’m maybe thinking about it a bit more but going back to going back to what I was saying to you what came out in this the Voices magazine, which comes from the Stroke, about moving on’ campaign, there seems to be a point in time where, where your let’s say, we’ve finished with you, we can’t do any more, but they could do, because the resources aren’t there. Now I don’t know whether what you’re talking about me in particular talking to the doctors whether or not they see it as a problem, because there’s no resource that they can actually put you to.

Right.

You know.

But you haven’t been given any advice about how to prevent anything further happening? it’s only

The only thing the only preventative measures that are, I was talked to about, and funnily enough I had to ask, about a week or so before I was, I came out of [ward name], I said What about food? Dietician Oh do you want to see one And basically a dietician was brought. It wasn’t part of the, let’s say the checklist, he’s done this, done that

Mike’ I do think about it and well, whenever I can, which perhaps is not as often as it should be but I would, would, whenever I go to the GP, she always takes my blood pressure… whenever. And I should perhaps do more often than I do now, but I do, I do try, and try and go, go, go down say once every three months, three or four months and have my blood pressure checked. And it’s been, it’s been like…okay, disrupts you a little bit but currently it’s quite, quite good, quite good.

Debbie’ You have six monthly blood tests as well, don’t you?

Mike’ About six monthly blood tests, yes, that’s right.

So you’re still being monitored?

Mike’ Oh yes, yes, yes, yes.

Debbie’ Yeah.

Mike’ Yes.

Debbie’ And I think you, I think he always will be and, and as for the bladder he’s going to be monitored because it’s a, apparently it is a cancer that can return. So he’s always having somebody sticking needles or tubes or something into you, aren’t you? [Laughs].

Frequent MOTs?

Mike’ Frequent
Debbie’ Frequent MOTs.

Mike’ Frequent MOTs.

Debbie’ And so I would say definitely have an annual, you know, have an annual, annual check up. You know, just go and ask, ask them just to do the run of the mill screen and check your blood pressure.

Mike’ Hm. Hm.

Debbie’ Because if he’d had it checked more often, you know, who knows. I mean, you can’t say it, it could have happened, it could have happened even with you taking pills but on the other hand as it was blood pressure related then probably it wouldn’t have done. You know. But you can’t, you can’t stop everything happening to you

I changed my whole, whole life, I haven’t got a car any more. So I know if I haven’t got a car, then I have to walk. So, you know, I’ve, I’ve really tried to help myself.

And do you, have you found that you’ve got the impression that they haven’t kind of bought into that so much, or
I don’t know. I don’t know really. Maybe I needed a bit more praise and saying, Well, you’ve done well, you’ve, you know, you’ve, you’ve really done well

Encouragement?

But no, nobody’s said that, they’ve just
No.

…left me to get on with it. I, that’s how I feel.

Yeah. I can see. So, you’re feeling a bit like, what you said earlier, not listened to and I suppose in a lot, for a lot of people encouragement is one of those ways
Yes.

…isn’t it, that we keep going,
Yes.

…and move forward.

It seems all negative, you know. I’ve, I feel that I’ve done well but nobody said, Oh well don you know, You’ve really done well, you’ve lost four ston.

You have.

You’re walking where you never walked befor. I got rid of my car so that I, I make myself walk, I have to walk.

it’s really scary actually. As I say, I’ve always been sort of super fit. I’ve got my own gym at home, you know. Was always going in there four or five times a week. Haven’t been able to touch it. I used to go swimming three or four times a week. And that’s all gone now. You know, I’ve, I’m scared to exercise I guess, unless there’s somebody else there.

I actually went into rehab, rehabilitation centre and I could exercise because I knew there were medics on hand so that if anything happened, you know, and, and people were watching me all the time and would come up to me and say, I think you’ve done enough now Step off

So it’s a bit reassuring to have somebody else
Absolutely.

overseeing what you’re doing. And that, how, how did you get to go to that rehab centre then? I mean,
I’m a police officer and it’s, it’s a police charity so
Oh, right. So, I mean, were you offered any, anything from, in, along those lines by your doctors?

No.

No.

No, nothing at all. I mean, basically I went to see the TIA nurse and she just said, You, you need to lose a little bit of weight And I smoke an odd cigarette and she said, You need to knock that on the head. And I’m, I’ll phone you in a couple of months And I actually haven’t had that phone call so