‘Since when you have these headaches?’, did the Doctores asked me. ‘About 6 to 7 weeks, maybe a bit more.’, I answered them. I answered everyone who asked me.
When my headaches started, I took some simple medication and after they didn’t ‘went away’ I went to my general practitioner (called ‘GP’) to check why I do have those headaches, and she told me that should get right away an appointment at a MRT practice.
Three years ago – I didn’t really have anything to do at the time – I retyped the list of our regional radiology practice and then brought it to the practice. I was supposed to put my head in the MRI back then to see if anything had changed, compared to my stroke 13 years ago. At that time, I had been in the Bad Säckinger MRI practice. Very good, everything was paletti.
This time, however, something had to be different, somewhere on or in my head! Because after calling several times, the web tool that does not suggest an MRI appointment – the doctors and the state are probably annoyed with this right now – and sending emails back and forth a few times, I showed up again after seven weeks in my family doctor’s practice to put pressure. Why? In some medical practices, there is no other way than for the nurses and family doctors to get on the phone themselves.
The MTA – a nice ‘doctor’s assistant’ who had been in the practice since 5 a.m. that morning – had already emailed me that day and told me to come with my referral and that she would see if she could get a ‘quick’ appointment somewhere. Thank you, Miss Albiez! And so it was: On the same day, in the afternoon, to Freiburg by train and to the MRI practice. After half an hour, it was clear: On the left side of the brain, where I had a bloody stroke 16 years ago, I had a 5-centimeter-long thrombus.
The next morning, I went straight to my family doctor’s office. And when my doctor saw me – a very good practice, by the way; you have to be a “professional or active patient” if you want to deal with professional doctors and not stamp your foot and scream murder, she pointed her finger at me, said: “He’s going to the University Hospital Freiburg this morning, I’ll call them right away, I’ve already ordered a taxi and have already signed the transfer!” Super well done, thank you Miss Drobach!
In the meantime, I’ve been lying or sitting at my laptop since last Wednesday, working – or quickly writing an ‘Aside: Stroke Unit’ – and I’m happy and grateful that everyone, really everyone, in Germany’s third-largest university hospital takes the thrombus incident very seriously and has started and is still going to clarify what triggered the thrombosis.
Thromboses in the brain are probably rare but dissolving the thrombus
in my case with blood-thinning agents – because of the bloody stroke 16
years ago – is more dangerous.
You have just freed me from all my cables, only a standard access on the left, and now still alone in the room.
So, that’s it. I’ll see how it goes!
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