My Unexpected Journey After a Medical Emergency
One Sunday in May 2017, while I was at the gym, I experienced something quite alarming. Using the chest press, I suddenly felt a strange pop. It didn’t really sound like anything—more like a sigh from within my body. Oddly enough, there was no pain, but I lost all strength. I had to make my way to some mats, shuffling along the wall. Honestly, my first thought was that I might be having a stroke. I wasn’t slurring my words, and my limbs seemed okay, but my left leg felt completely numb. It was an odd sensation. When I lay back, both knees were bent, but I noticed my left knee fell to the side whenever I looked away. It was just… strange.
Eventually, I spent hours in the A&E at St Thomas’ hospital in London. I was 34 and healthy, and by then I started to regain feeling in my leg, so the doctors concluded it was probably just a bruised spine and decided to discharge me. This was all complicated by overworked staff and shift changes, which meant that when MRI images of my brain went missing, no one seemed to follow up on them.
A few days later, during a follow-up appointment, my partner, Luke, who was working in ICU at the time, got into a debate with the consultant. I was still having trouble walking, and the consultant assumed I had suffered a stroke due to a blood clot, so he wanted to prescribe high-dose blood thinners. But Luke insisted on a scan.
He ended up saving my life. After returning from a CT scan, I found the consultant looking rather pale; they had discovered a massive bleed on my brain, and I needed to be sent to specialists at King’s College hospital. Good thing we didn’t start those blood thinners—who knows what might have happened?
Tests later confirmed I had an arteriovenous malformation (AVM), which is, essentially, a tangle of blood vessels that had ruptured near the area of my brain responsible for motor function, leading to a stroke. The neurosurgeon, an expert on AVMs, rated it at 4 out of 6 for complexity, location, and size.
Typically, a Grade 4 AVM is considered too risky to remove. Yet, the surgeon said since I was young, he was willing to take the chance if I was. Without the operation, the potential for another severe bleed loomed over me.
The surgery couldn’t take place until July as it required three neurosurgeons, along with a supporting team of anaesthetists and nurses. Those weeks leading up to it were tough. I managed to lose my limp but felt anxiety since the AVM could rupture again at any time.
The operation took over 16 hours. After it was done, Luke received the news that everything went well. However, the doctor mentioned something rather awkward: “We’re really sorry, but we dropped your skull.”
The piece they had removed was accidentally knocked to the floor at the end of the procedure. They contemplated 3D-printing a replacement and reattaching it later due to concerns of infection. Instead, they chose to clean it up and gave me extra antibiotics.
I found out about the whole incident days later when I woke up from a medically induced coma. At that time, I was on so many medications that it hardly registered, and I was overcome with emotions—sometimes crying with happiness or gratitude.
It struck me as funny, even now, that my skull ended up on the floor. I can’t help but envision the surgeons picking it up, dusting it off and joking about the “five-second rule.” I mean, they had been digging out roughly 100 meters of blood vessels for 16 hours and were definitely exhausted—yet they saved my life.
Recovery wasn’t a walk in the park. Relearning how to walk was a grueling process, and I felt completely drained for months afterward. Even now, if I tilt my head a certain way, I can hear the brain fluid gurgling. I’ve also lost some proprioception in my left foot; without focusing on it directly, I struggle to control it, which makes driving manual cars a challenge.
Despite everything, I’ve never felt sorry for myself. I’m incredibly grateful. This experience brought Luke and me closer together; we got engaged just weeks after the surgery and married in 2021.
Eventually, I discovered that during surgery, the surgeons found the AVM to be larger and more complicated than initially believed. Now the neurosurgeon uses my case as proof that even larger AVMs can be successfully removed.
While resting up, I came across a study suggesting that people who survive life-threatening situations tend to be the happiest. I can totally relate to that. Honestly, it was an experience that changed my life for the better—even with the skull-drop story included.
