Me lucky ? - I'll let you decide ! part 1

My bout of bad luck started when i was 4 and well has never really stopped lol only kidding H x Its a long story so i will  be doing it in parts !

I was 4 when I went the doctors with tonsillitis again ( we were on holiday in the isle of white ) and the doctor gave my mum a funny look and said "did you know your daughter had a heart mummer! We came back off holiday and that's when the tests started and I had my first op the following April. being 5 I cant really remember too much of that time just the smell of hospitals, playing with the toys at the bottom of ward 2 in the old Birmingham Children's Hospital, and the train ride down to Birmingham on the old British Rail trains

At this time heart operations were not very successful and the doctors didn't know much about what they were doing. For this operation I had a metal valve put in  which meant I had to take wafarin tablets which I didn't enjoy at all.1 the weekly blood tests and 2 the time I had of school, I now know how damaging this was as my spelling and grammar are awful. 

Other than my ops and blood tests my childhood was filled with happy memories of  family holidays in Wales   and in our caravan and my dog Penny.  

By the time I was 10 the metal valve was too small as I had grown so much - ( which we now know was why i had the mummer in the first place ) so it was time for another operation and again i cant really remember much of this but i can remember the summer before my op - me and mum went to Birmingham on the train and it was a baking hot summer i think it was 1989 i was just going for some tests but we stayed over and all i can remember was the heat.

 The big op was in November and this is when i had my big stroke - it effected everything i had to relearn to all sorts of things like bladder control, eating with a knife and fork and the little stuff like doing up buttons and zips.  The biggest things I had to relearn were walking and talking- these are the two things i still struggle with today - I have still got week ankles which means I can not walk far with out support ( my pushchair is a life saver !) as for my speech well that's one I still struggle with despite hours of speech therapy - I'm just really shy and i guess years of bullying made me not bother speaking at all !