Hi I’m Charlene van der berg. I’m a 37 year old 6 year post stroke patient. I made a promise to myself and I’m here to tell u how I do it. So typically u’ll be taking the steps with me. But first some medical history. 6 years ago I had been a happy pregnant fully functional already mom of 1 biological but many of my heart girls. But personally I only have two beautiful daughters and a gorgeous red headed grand daughter. (And yes she fights with me.) Moving on. In my pregnancy I had blood clots in my calf. I did my hospital stay (thankfully private) and was appointed a gynae in westville life hospital. So yes private. But that didn’t save me. I was told my due date was for 11april 2015. But baby started giving me a hard time. First making me walk like a penguin with a lot of pain. By cracking my pubic bone. I still had 2 months to go. But then she tore my placenta in March which caused me to bleed. They raced me through because I was on blood thinners and via an emergency c section on Friday the 13th march during a rain storm at 4.30am my beautiful daughter was born. After her birth I was taken to a recuperation room. But without even a check up my doctor ran through and wheeled me into another room. Where she proceeded to give me an internal straight after c section pressing down on stomach to break the blood clots on my uterus up into pieces expecting them to all come out like a period. But what I'd like to know is how she knew I had the clots before touching me. She told me I had clots as she took my bed into an empty room to do the procedure. Sadly I wasn’t that lucky. On the 10th of afril 2015. I had a friend come visit bringing me gifts for baby and to drink coffee. Then just before 4pm she has to go so I give my baby to my mom. (That lived with us due to my complications.) And I say mom bath her and I’ll let my friend out then when she’s done I’ll feed her. I go out and open the gate for my friend and as she turns to say bye. I get a sharp pain in my temple so I squinted.she made a remark. I told her about the pain. But Saud I’d go rest. I go into the house and up the stairs into my room. My mom turns to talk to me and starts pointing at my face asking me what’s wrong. By now I see panic in her eyes. She’s now freaking out and starts pointing to my bed telling me to sit down I’m having a stroke. I sit down. I keep trying to talk to my mom, to say calm down u holding my baby. But my tongues so heavy I can’t get it to work properly, my dad comes running in, I try to stand up but hit the floor. Now I couldn’t ffigure out how to move. So my dad lifted me back to the bed. Now I’m laying there my mom screaming for her phone. And she phones my fiance, he phones the ambulance. But my fiance arrived first and he was just calming me down when the ambulance got there, they come in and assess me. I got something they call restless syndrome. So when my left side stopped working my right side went into over drive and I couldn’t ccontrol my arms movements. So in the ambulance I got s reamed at by a paramedic for ripping out my drip and spraying him with blood.( By the way young man. Do u realise that u screamed at a woman that was terrified she was going to die!moving on. Ill forgive you, because you young. I had just birthed a month before so I knew my status and informed him apologising for spraying blood on him.
Moving on, I got raced to westville life hospital as I had birthed there and was their responsibility.
Ok now I’m going to see if you want more, subscribe to read more and learn how I’ve survived and walk with me while I rebuild 6 years later.