Why did I wake up in an ambulance on the way to work?
Tuesday June 2015 was a turning point in my life and career as the following happened to me on my daily commute to London. I want to be honest and transparent, and this blog is painful and emotional (hopefully some humour) to write but I am hoping my experience will motivate and inspire people to make changes to their lifestyle, health, relationships and goals.
I originally wrote these blogs to help support men but via social media and e-mail I have realised from the feedback that a diverse group of people from all around the world have found the article beneficial.
The below explains my terrifying experience but it has also motivated me to really open my mind and learn about my fitness, mind, daily habits and my health goals. The experience was also an inspiration for this project and my goal to create a platform for people to be inspired and share their experience and approach to health, wellbeing and happiness. During my research and personal goals and community feedback the project encapsulated three themes of travel ( Learning from global communities), Art ( The power of art of well being) and Nature (Spending time in nature for health and wellbeing.)
My eyes slowly opened and the first thing that I noticed was a bright ceiling light, then the loud sound of an emergency siren and then a face came into focus, and I felt him holding my hand and then a pressure on my right arm and the buzzing sound of a heart monitor. As I blinked and regained focus I noticed his green uniform and the London ambulance logo. I started to panic and breathe heavily, and my mind went into overdrive, was I involved in a terrorist attack, was there a train or tube crash? did I get hit by a car?
The paramedic squeezed by hand and provided some comforting words to relax me and then he asked, “Do you have epilepsy?”. My mind was really fuzzy, but I replied that I don’t have epilepsy and then he explained that I fainted in Boots the chemist next to Baker Street station and the staff and first aid assistant from London Underground put me into a recovery position as I had a fit and full body convulsions and seizure. Why did I go to Boots the chemist? why did I have a seizure? more worryingly I had no recollection of the morning, and I could not remember my pin code for my phone, I could not remember my surname, I could not remember by house phone number or my wife’s mobile.
Please review your phone and add an emergency contact to your home screen.
At this point I was really scared; I could feel my breathing get faster and faster and my eyes filled with small tears. The paramedic, I later found out his name was Tim, was absolutely brilliant and comforted me and said not to worry as we were on the way to St Mary’s hospital Paddington, and they will complete some tests to establish the cause of the seizure.
I was rushed into the accident and Emergency ward and at this point I want to say how grateful and proud I am of the national health service in the United Kingdom. The nurses could tell that I was scared, confused and worried and they were so supportive as they plugged me into the ECG machine and monitored by heart rate and blood pressure. Apparently, it took me 30 minutes to regain some of my memory and I unlocked my phone and phoned my wife and started a conversation that I didn’t think I would be having at 45 years of age “Please don’t worry but I have fainted on the way to work and I am in the A&E at St Mary’s hospital”. My wife is so practical and arranged childcare for our two kids and then made her way to London. I still had no recollection of the morning, and I still don’t, and I only have the details from Tim and the staff in Boots as I popped in to thank them for looking after me on that morning. The manager said that I was in the queue with a bottle of water, and she heard me drop my coins, then the water and then fall to the floor and started having a full body seizure. Why did I go to Boots to buy water when I had a full bottle in my rucksack? This really puzzles me but maybe I knew that I did not feel well and identified Boots as a safe place for assistance and support.
I was visited very quicky by a neurologist and he confirmed that we wanted me to have an emergency MRI scan because after a seizure there can be brain activity that can be identified to locate the cause of the issue from the electric pulses in the brain.
The A&E was very busy that day and as I lay in the cubicle I had so many thoughts in my mind, will I have to live with epilepsy? do I have brain damage, will I be able to work? What will the impact be to my family? My mind was on fire and in the isolation of the cubicle I started to cry and found it actually quite relaxing as I felt the tears slowly slide down my face. At this point the nurse came into check on my statistics and I frantically tried to wipe the tears with the jacket sleeve, but she smiled and passed me a box of tissues.
“It is not a weakness for men to cry and in fact it is a strength”
An example of a MRI scanner
I have actually had an MRI scan twice when I was younger after being concussed twice playing rugby and they are amazing machines. An MRI is a magnetic resonance imaging and uses magnetism and radio waves to take pictures of inside the body. As you can see from the above image you lie on a bed and depending on the part of the body being scanned you are slowly moved into the large magnet. It can seem very scary, but the operator can speak to via the control room and reassure you to lay still and try to remain calm. My head scan took about 15 minutes, and I found my mind wandering and asked myself “Can you imagine if this was a time machine? “, then images of the film Back to the future II came to my mind when Biff discovers the Gray’s sports Almanac, complete sports statistics from 1950-2000 magazine. Biff was able to steal the DeLorean the time machine car and travel back to 1955 and pass the book to his younger self and then have the ability to bet on every sporting event with access to the results and become very rich. If it was a time machine what year would you travel back to ?
“Mr Moore…. Mr Moore…. we have finished the scan you can open your eyes” ….the sound of the humming of the magnets had relaxed my mind and my nerves and anxiety had taken to me to the film back to the future. This story is relevant because after my seizure I have invested a great deal of time looking at how I can improve my lifestyle, find out what caused the seizure and more importantly what lifestyle changes could I make to reduce the likelihood of it happening again. Like me you are probably very sceptical about the power of the mind, meditation and mindfulness. I was exactly like you before my incident, meditation is for hippies living in the woods. Please, please read on and try some of the exercises and techniques that I have tried as part of my 12-step plan for my lifestyle changes. All the tools and techniques are free, and I have no affiliation with any companies and all of my articles and links are based on my honest and open experience. I want to be 100% transparent and honest and my aim is that we can inspire each other to change and maintain our heathy lifestyle. As the website and blog have grown I have decided to also add a printed bi annual printed magazine in the United Kingdom driven by the community.
Honestly, I have tried different tools and techniques that focus on the power of the mind, and they do not involve moving to a monastery in the middle of Tibet or shaving your hair. I did suggest to my wife that I might try a week retreat with monks to clear my mind and see if I could last a week without talking, she said you would last less than a day! (Maybe this could be one of my future challenges!) Please read my post on the power of the mind and meditation for stress relief and setting goals and please try some of the techniques. As men we do worry about what our friends think, will people laugh at me? will I look like an idiot? These are all valid fears and concerns and I had the same reservations and concerns about this project and trust me people have laughed at me, called me a new age weirdo and I have received many negative comments on social media but the volume of positive comments is a great motivation and all I ask is that you open your mind and try some of the techniques in the free plans. You might not be comfortable with some of the techniques but please give them a try and from my own experience they help me to keep motivated and I don’t want to experience that fear and isolation of waking up in the back of an ambulance with no memory of the day. (Just for your information my memory of that day never came back, and I have no recollection of that morning.)
The neurologist called me into his office after 90 minutes and he had completed the review of the MRI scans and he showed me the various images of my brain (Image below is an example of an MRI head scan). My wife did comment that it was a great achievement to find the brain, but the good news was the scan was normal and no damage or abnormality to the brain. “However, can I ask what you have done to your nose?” asked the consultant ….” My nose?”. He then showed me a vertical scan of my head and you could see a few cracks in my nose and a small piece of flapping bone. I explained that I broke my nose a few times playing rugby in the past, but it could also explain why my wife complains of a clicking noise when I sleep on my right-hand side. The neurologist smiled and guessed that the air in my nostril was probably causing the flapping bone to make that clicking noise. This is still on my to do list to try and resolve and as the neurologist explained it is more cosmetic than critical, but it could be a lot cheaper than a divorce!
“As men we need to look after our health and well being”
Example of an brain scan from the MRI scanner
They continued to monitor me for 2 hours in accident and emergency and I was discharged with no real prognosis but the neurologist (I wish I could remember his name) was amazing and could tell I was very scared and anxious, and he explained that we could all faint or have a seizure in our lifetime but with no real medical explaination. He advised me to have a full medical via my general practitioner (GP) but my blood pressure, heart rate, head scan and bloods were all normal.
My wife and I jumped into a taxi and drove back to Marylebone station to get a train home, but I was still very anxious and concerned but the words coming out of my mind were positive and reassuring as I did not want my wife and kids to worry.
Why did I have a seizure?
This is the question that was playing on my mind, and I had to get to the bottom of the issue and my GP signed me off for 2 weeks and I wanted to be honest and transparent with my work colleagues and I explain that I had a seizure on the way to work. My company were really supportive, and the experience really taught me a great deal about friendship as a few work friends were genuinely concerned and checked in with me every few days. However, when I returned to the office after 2 weeks, I heard people were making comments such as “He is mentally weak”, “he will never get far in the company with mental weakness”, “was it a lie to get some sympathy and not get selected for redundancy”, “Is he playing a game?”. I know these comments were genuine as friends that I could trust were angered and annoyed on my behalf and the work culture was very toxic.
To provide some background, the seizure was in June 2015 and my dad had passed away in October 2014 and in May 2015 my entire department were put on notice of redundancy, and I was involved in the consultancy period that would last 5 to 6 months. Hindsight is a wonderful tool, but it is obvious now that I did not grieve probably for my dad, I did not look after my health, I was stuck in a toxic work culture, I was not eating well, sleeping well or looking after my health or living in the moment with my family. It is easy for me to write this now, but it was not obvious to me at the time, and I have called this “The Clarity of the Mind”.
I am a very positive person and interestingly when I confided to my friends and family about my seizure, my stress and anxiety people were very surprised and the common response was “ You are always so happy, cheerful and positive “, “ I had no idea”, “ You are a great manager and have been very supportive to me during this threat of redundancy”. Friends and family were genuinely surprised and the feedback really resonated with me and it is a lesson that we can all learn from. Even though I was a really struggling internally from an outsiders point of view I was looking and acting normal and the fact people said that I always looked happy and positive really shocked me. So please don’t take it for granted that people are copying in any situation and please listen and be supportive of your friends and family and don’t assume they are ok.
“Please don’t take it for granted that people are ok. If you see people struggling please listen and be supportive”
The last comment really resonated with me and is something that I share with people managers, at the time I was managing a team of 15 people and we were all under the threat of redundancy. My strongest skills as a manager is empathy and I was supporting my friends and work colleagues during this very stressful and anxious period in our career. I have experienced this three times in my career, but I have always survived or moved to a different company. However, this experience was different because I was still grieving for my dad, sorting out his estate, worrying about my mum being left on her own, worrying about redundancy and worrying about my team. When you are on notice of redundancy it is a human resource, legal period to prepare for the possibility of losing your job but not a guarantee that it will happen. As a people manager and an emphatic person, I try to be a supportive human, listen, try and provide support and guidance and always provide an open door for my team. The threat of redundancy impacts people in a variety of ways and every individual situation is different and is a very emotional, stressful and anxious period and I have members of my team break down in tears, get angry and aggressive, increase alcohol consumption as people worry about their financial futures. I was under a great deal of work pressure at the time and I totally understand that large companies need to make tough financial, strategic and economic decisions but from my experience there needs to be more support for all staff ( Including managers) as we are not experts in stress and anxiety and it can impact people in so many different ways.
Men, please talk about your issues and emotions.
This is probably step one for my approach to achieve “The clarity of mind” and I will discuss in more detail in the blog “Men, please talk!”
After my seizure I visited by GP and in the United Kingdom we are lucky to have the national health service but medical checks and appointments can take weeks or months and I still had no reason or explanation for the seizure and with the toxic work culture by stress and anxiety was on the increase and I felt over whelmed but the turning point for me was speaking to an occupational health councilor. My GP was very supportive, but they are under so much pressure and the consultation time can be between 5 to 10 minutes. I was very lucky that my GP did discuss medication and in particular anti-depressants, but I still had some clarity in my mind that I wanted to try alternative methods and my GP suggested Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT).
Update: The National health service in the UK is under immense pressure due to the pandemic and funding and resourcing for mental health and wellbeing has reduced at a time when mental health issues have increased. The pandemic has impacted everyone in the world, and everyone has been impacted by worry, stress and anxiety and from comments on my social media people are really struggling to get help. I am not an expert but for me personally I knew that my mind was under pressure from work and losing my dad and I was confident that with the correct support I would improve but I also know that every individual situation is different. Just looking at my brain scan in various angles really illustrated to me how complex and amazing the brain and mind is and how powerful and instrumental it is for our health and wellbeing.
So many people have contacted me on my social channels to reach out and this blog has resonated with them but they feel helpless and some people have been on the NHS waiting list for over 18 months to get support for their anxiety and mental health issues. The NHS needs some support, here is an idea, I was lucky that my company offered free occupational counseling. I can imagine all large companies offer this service to their staff, why don’t we have a campaign so they offer the service to five friends and family?. So if you had a friend that was self employed and no access to the NHS service you could nominate them to receive free counseling via your company scheme.
At the time of my incident, I was really lucky as my company offered free counselling sessions and to be honest, I often read the e-mails or posters offering the sessions but never visualized me using the service. Honestly, it was the best decision I have ever made and please do not be scared to use the service or feel like it a weakness, in fact you are strong by reaching out. The toxic work environment was adding to my anxiety and people were still calling me mentally weak, people were talking about my breakdown on the way to work, people were laughing about my seizure. However, humour is also a very powerful tool for mental wellbeing, and I am very lucky and grateful to have a great group of friends. When I told them about my seizure and the paramedic found me in Boots, I dropped my water and money, they replied “Maybe people thought you were a break-dancing act and that is why people were throwing money?” My friends and their direct sense of humour has been very supportive, and I have focused on investing time with people that I respect, that are positive and add value to my clarity of mind, please stop investing time with toxic people.
“It is not a weakness to ask for help, in fact it is a STRENGTH”
This negative comments really impact your clarity of mind but please, please reach out to a counselling service and it changed my entire direction. Also, please contact your human resources department as there might be funding or support that you can use for free.
I signed up for 10. 1-hour weekly telephone sessions with a lovely therapist called David, was I embarrassed? In all honesty yes, I was at the start, and I only told me wife about the sessions but that is because my generation were raised up that men should be tough and just get on with it!! This stereotype of men is outdated, and you are Strong to take the first steps and talk about your issues. Actually, David mentioned this during me first session and honestly this was the best 10-hour investment. He kept reminding me that I was strong and I really surprised myself how a complete stranger could actually dive into my emotions and provide so much support and guidance and we covered subjects such as “How I have not grieved probably and I was looking for a magic solution but I had to live with grieve and make my dad proud”, “I had to invest in quality time with my wife and kids and live in the moment”, “Why do you need to work in a toxic work culture?”, “ Write down the positives of a redundancy, could the financial outcome provide opportunities?”, “ Your strength is empathy but who is looking after you?”
I will touch on these points in further blogs and videos, but David was the first person to introduce me to meditation and I provide further details in the article “The benefits of meditation.”. As I have mentioned, please do not dismiss this tool but during one session David asked me to focus on what I was grateful for and write down a list.
I will cover this in more detail, but this exercise made me cry (I recommend bringing a box of tissues to the sessions) and remember “Real men cry” and it is not a weakness. I still listen to the gratitude session on the app, but David and I discussed how I was grateful to have such a happy and loving childhood and fill my mind with happy images of spending time with my dad. Be grateful for the loving support of my wife and kids during this tough period of my life. Make a list of your REAL friends and list the people that are positive, and you enjoy their company. Do not waste time with your toxic work colleagues. Be grateful to have your health and invest time with family and friends. One session really resonated with me, and David explained most of his corporate sessions were for people who were stressed and anxious about work, redundancy, toxic work environments and the feeling of being stuck. However, we are in control of our own destiny, and we can and should set small and long-term goals and invest in you.
Please do not be embarrassed and please try some of the steps that I have outlined, and they have really helped me, and I acknowledge that you may feel awkward, or you might be worried that people will perceive you as weak. As men we need to invest time in us, our happiness and wellbeing.
Please write down your short term and long terms goals. For me my short-term goal was to complete as many tests as possible to really focus on my health and one thing that I identified is that I have a very low heart rate called “Bradycardia” and I visited the cardiology unit at the John Radcliffe hospital in Oxford and completed numerous tests including Echocardiogram and a 24-hour heart monitor. My annual heart review has been delayed due to the pandemic but every time I complete the bike or treadmill test (A test to monitor your heart performance under exercise) the nurse always looks at me with concern as my resting heart rate is between 51 to 60 beats per minute (BPM) and they always have a sneaky look at my beer belly. The consultant explained that I have a heartbeat of a professional athlete and my wife added “and a body of a sumo wrestler”. (Humour is great for our mental wellbeing!) Four weeks before my first test I could feel strong palpitations in my chest from my heart and the consultant identified that I had Ectopic beats. These are early (premature) or extra heartbeats, which can cause you to have palpitations. ‘Ectopic’ means out of place. Ectopic beats happen when cells away from your hearts own natural pacemaker get a little excited (or irritable) and release an electrical signal, causing an ‘extra’ or early heartbeat.
“You have a heart beat of a professional athelete but a body of a sumo wrestler”
One habit that I would recommend is to have your annual health check from the NHS and you can use the information to set some goals, maybe your blood pressure is too high, overweight, risk of diabetes etc. I know it can be depressing and create anxiety, but my experience created anger, why did I let my job and poor lifestyle create my scary experience of waking up in an ambulance. For me that image of waking up in the ambulance, the sound of the siren, the sound of the streets of London and that feeling of fear is what motivates me to try and stick to my healthy habits. (Most of the time!)
When this first happened in the office it was pretty scary as you can actually feel the extra beat in your chest, and I had never experienced it before, and I took myself to an NHS walk in centre in London. If you have experienced this the consultant advised me that they are actually very common but please speak to your GP and have a check-up. The possible causes can be caffeine, energy drinks, smoking, anxiety and stress, alcohol, diet and recreation drugs. I still have an annual test but at the start of my lifestyle change my ectopic beats were 18% of my heart beats and my consultant advised that he will probably look at surgery as an option if they continue to rise over 20% and maybe medication or a pacemaker. A pacemaker at the age of 48! just think of all the jokes and fun the lads would have down the pub!
Please read the blog Healthy heart for more information but I am really happy to report that my lifestyle changes have removed the Ectopic beats completely and no I was not using recreational drugs but as you can tell from this blog, it was my stress, anxiety, poor diet, lack of exercise and working in a very toxic and stressful environment and that is what I CHANGED.
Why do we wait for a medical emergency to change our lifestyle? Don’t be like me, think about your lifestyle now and make small healthy habit changes and invest in YOU and the people that are important to YOU.
Disclaimer: Please check with your doctor before you embark on any lifestyle change, and I am not a medical or fitness expert, but I am passionate about changing my lifestyle and I am hoping that sharing my experience and being honest and transparent it might inspire other men around the world. I am on a learning experience, and I will be reaching out to experts across the world for some advice on men’s health, wellbeing, diet, exercise and hobbies and collectively we can all motivate each other with our stories and experience.
Step 1, “Open your mind”, this has been a key lesson for me to open my mind to new ideas such as meditation, new food such as Kale smoothies, new types of exercise such as Yoga, learn from different cultures in the world.
This is my story but my vision is to build a community and we can share stories to motivate each other via our passion for Travel, Art and the power of nature and focusing on health and well being.
Good luck and if you would like to contribute an article please visit the contributors page.
Larry