A woman who doctors thought was a drug addict when she was rushed into A&E with a headache has told how she almost died – when it turned out she was having a STROKE.
Hannah Grimshaw, 21, had been suffering mild headaches and felt tired and confused, but thought little of it as she was midway through a busy week at work.
It was only when the call centre operator fell asleep after a shift one day and woke up disorientated and aggressive that husband Kieran, 24, grew worried.
When he couldn’t shake her out of the muddled state, he dialled 999 and Hannah was rushed to Rotherham General Hospital in South Yorkshire.
Shockingly, when she got there, doctors questioned Kieran about whether she DRUG ADDICT or an alcoholic – and even thought she might be mentally ill.
But the terrifying reality was that a huge bleed was crippling half of Hannah’s brain cells – and building up to a rare type of stroke that could have left her paralysed or dead.
Hannah, of Wombwell, South Yorks., who married Kieran just six weeks before she fell ill, said: “There was no sign that this was going to happen.
“I have headaches quite a lot normally. The headaches I had in the two weeks leading up to it were normal. There was nothing to say that I needed to go to hospital or anything.
“I was getting a bit confused about some things”
“I had only been married for a few weeks and I’d just started a new job, so I thought it was that.
“It was silly things, like if I put shopping away I always put it in the same cupboard but I was putting it in a cupboard that I didn’t even use.
“I was thinking, ‘How am I forgetting all this?’
“It was because the brain cells had stopped working on one side of my brain.”
While doctors struggled to work out what was wrong with her, Hannah was put into an induced coma to try and calm her down from her agitated state.
But when they woke her up on Saturday, November 7 – two days later she had gone into hospital – she was even worse than before.
Bewildered doctors had no idea what to do next – so put her back into a coma again.
Anxious Kieran, a warehouse worker, said: “They put her in the coma thinking she had meningitis and gave her a lumber puncture, but then they realised it wasn’t that.
“They did CT scans, MRI scans and all sorts of stuff to try and work out was wrong.
“But they just didn’t know, and on the Saturday when they woke her up but she was still so disorientated. She couldn’t speak.
“I saw her opening her eyes and that was the best feeling ever. I thought she was just going to come round and be Hannah.”
“So when they put her in the coma again it was a massive kick in the teeth for me. I really thought she was going to die.”
“It was unbearable. It was indescribable – the worst ever feeling I’ve ever ever had.
“The doctors told me that if she remained in that state, we would have to start looking at turning her life support off and there was nothing they could do to bring her back.
“One minute she was there and the next she was nearly dead. And there was nothing I could do to help her.”
Doctors told Kieran that his new wife had just a 50 per cent chance of survival – and said if she did survive, she might be brain damaged or paralysed.
But miraculously, after a devastating five and a half days in a coma, she was woken up – and it was almost like nothing had happened.
Hannah had suffered a subarachnoid haemorrhage – a rare type of stroke which is sometimes caused by smoking, drinking, high blood pressure or a head trauma.
But it was only when doctors performed a lumbar puncture, after she was woken up from the second induced coma, that they realised there had been bleeding in her brain.
Doctors were baffled as to why Hannah – a non-smoker and moderate drinker with a regular blood pressure, who hadn’t hit her head – had suffered the haemorrhage.
And they were even more confused when, seemingly for no reason at all, the bleed in her brain suddenly stopped, and she began to recover.
Two days later, Hannah was allowed to go home and now, less than a month after the haemorrhage, she is pretty much back to normal.
She said: “They’ve got no idea what caused it, and they were so confused as to why I was suddenly fine, after being so ill.
“Everything stopped on its own – I didn’t have to have surgery or anything.
“It’s a miracle, and I’m so happy to be back at home.”
“It’s just so scary that this all happened so quickly. If it can happen to healthy 21-year-old, it can happen to anyone.
“Life’s too short – it can be taken away so quickly.”
Kieran added: “It’s amazing to have her back. It’s amazing having her back home. I love her so much. She’s amazing.”
