I took this photo five days after suffering a spinal stroke whilst running my stall at the Edinburgh Fringe. I didn't know at the time that's what had happened (my legs suddenly went numb right up to my waist) and suffered on for the rest of the week as I had no backup and no time to make it home to see anyone.

When I got back, my doc rushed me to hospital and I've pretty much been there since until tonight when they let me out.

It took them a while and a whole lot of tests to figure out what had happened. The diagnosis was (is) pretty scary. Whilst a tiny amount of feeling has come back, there's no knowing if it will all come back. 

I'm not allowed to drive until the end of the month (and only if my doctor says it's ok) and I can't walk more than 5-10 minutes without feeling exhausted. No chance of doing any photography for a while then.

My parents ran my stall at the Largs Viking Festival all week - not that I'll be living off the proceeds for that for long as it's been a complete washout. And my van broke down. Then they discovered another problem with it.

So all in all, a pretty rubbish few weeks. But at least I'm out of hospital and at least I have a diagnosis - and treatment to hopefully protect me from any future clots. Most of all I'm thankful it wasn't worse. I could have been left paralysed. A very scary thought.