About Tabby

My name is Tabitha Cecilia Ursula Bushill. I was born on 19 July 1979; I am now 30 years old. I originally started my professional life as an archaeologist, travelling and working in Greece… I was determined to establish myself as a real life Indiana Jones…

Failing miserably at this, and needing to give my skin a break from the constant sunbathing, I decided to re-study… I needed a challenge or two, so I studied law. In 2007 I qualified as a solicitor practising in mental health law, prison law and actions against the police. I then moved more into civil litigation and inquest law. My last legal position was as head of three legal departments at a leading Solicitors practice.

On 14 February 2009 I went to sleep as usual at my Stoke Newington flat, having had a lovely and romantic valentine’s day with my partner, Alain. At approximately 07:30 on 15 February 2009 I woke up on my left hand side. I was lying on my left arm. I could not feel my left hand but could feel the fingers in my left hand moving under my body. I rolled over and examined my hand. My fingers were twitching rhythmically, much like I was playing the piano (I have unfortunately long given up the piano when I realised I really wasn’t that good!). I presumed this twitching was due to my having slept on my arm, and my fingers responding to a lack of blood. I sat up and waited for the twitching to stop. It didn’t; I could not stop my fingers from twitching no matter how hard I tried. My arm then started involuntarily twitching from the elbow at first, and then the shoulder. I realised I was having a seizure and it was travelling up my left side.

I realised that there was something seriously wrong. I woke up Alain. He, thinking that I had already written a spreadsheet for our Sunday activities and was kicking him out of bed, was not interested. However, on my uncontrollably flapping my possessed arm in his direction, he became concerned.

We tried to control the twitching. This was futile. If anything, this exacerbated the twitching; my left cheek started to scream out for attention also. The twitching spread to the left side of my face. My left eye, cheek and the left side of my cheek started to violently jerk so much so that I couldn’t see anything out of my left eye. I started to feel weak, dizzy and a little nauseous. My left leg then gave way and I collapsed to the floor.

Alain called for an ambulance. As soon as he had hung up the telephone, all seizures immediately stopped. We were amazed. I thought that this must have been some trick of my mind and so a minute later we agreed that Alain should cancel the ambulance. As he was on the phone, the seizures came back but this time with so much more force that I felt myself passing out. We got to my car. With the L plates flying (I was teaching Alain to drive at the time) he drove me (within the speed limits!) to the Whittington Hospital in North London.

The staff were great at Accident and Emergency. I was put onto a heart monitor and my blood pressure taken countless times. Doctor after doctor came and told me to pull all manner of silly faces and puff out my cheeks. Throughout all this time, some 5 hours, the seizures did not cease.

At approximately 1pm I started to have breaks in the seizures. By 3pm I was experiencing more time of calm to seizure time. I was moved to a ward. More doctors came and more tests carried out. It was clear, with no disrespect to the medical staff, that they had no idea what was the cause... or that was what they were telling me.

I was told I had to see a neurologist. However, it being a Sunday, I was told I would have to stay overnight in the hospital. At this time I was 1.5 months into my new job which was not coming second to anything. So, I discharged myself. I had sent Alain home some hours ago, and so I drove myself home.

Over the following weeks, I experienced constant twitching in my left hand. On two occasions I had further full seizures. I reported this to my GP and was immediately given an appointment with a neurologist, Dr Tim Young. I was then told that I had had a ‘stroke’, that I immediately had to cease driving, that I now had epilepsy, that I needed to take medication, and that I would have to have an MRI/investigations. Dr Young advised me that there could be any manner of reasons for my condition; he hoped it was as a result of a virus I had picked up on my recent travels to Nepal.

Since this time I have had dozens of MRI’s and meetings with neurologists.

I was diagnosed as having a Cavernoma, located in the central sulcus of the right frontal lobe of my brain, approximately four centres into the brain. It was highlighted that there was a 10% chance that this tumour was in fact not a Cavernoma, but something else, namely cancer, but for the time being and given the presentation, we should presume on the basis of this diagnosis.

On 15 February 2009 my Cavernoma had a massive haemorrhage. As it is located on the sensory and motor strip’s of the left side of my body, and this area of the brain controls my left hand, arm, foot and face, it gave rise to the a seizure down my left side. This part of my brain also controls my ability to annunciate and find language from my ‘memory banks’. And so, I now often suffer from headaches, have lost the majority of feeling in two of the fingers in my left hand, and often find it hard to concentrate and ‘get my words out’. My memory has also been affected.

I continued to work for some 5 months after this incident. However, realising that as I continued to work, my condition worsened, I decided that I had to leave my life as a lawyer and took up an administrator role. This was probably the best decision I could have made as up until 3 months ago when I quit being a lawyer, I was told by my neurologist team that my Cavernoma was still haemorrhaging. It is only in the past month that I have been told this is no longer the case and that my brain has started to heal.

I have only ever had one ‘migraine’, when I was climbing to Everest Base Camp in 2007. I believed this to be altitude sickness. I have now been told that this was probably the first time my Cavernoma haemorrhaged.

Prior to my seizure of February 2009, thinking back, I have had a number of headaches. However, working as a lawyer, managing three legal departments, and therefore working 6 days a week for often 16-18 hours per day, I did not normally allow myself to acknowledge any headaches or even take time to think about anything other than work.