I had just 24 hourstoliveafter medicsmissed brainaneurysm

Op saved Shona after nurse’s gentle touch revealed how serious her condition was

It was a reassuring rub of the hand, a friendly gesture of support and best wishes.

For nurse Shona Green, though, it sent alarm bells ringing. She instantly knew that it was an acknowledgment from the staff member operating the CT scanner that something was amiss.

Soon a doctor was breaking the news that, had a brain aneurysm not been spotted, Shona had 24 hours to live.

But even so, she still might not pull through, or at least survive as she was, and she should say what she wanted to her family.

Rosyth mum-of-three Shona had suffered headaches for six weeks in the autumn of 2015, repeatedly going to see her GP.

“I thought it was a strange migraine but then I had double vision and a throbbing in the base of my neck,” said Shona, a nursing auxiliary at the Victoria hospital in Kirkcaldy.

“I think I went six times but it was put down to being muscular and I was given gels and painkillers.

“Because I was working on a ward, I kept checking my blood pressure daily and it was constantly worryingly high.

“It came to a crunch when I was sick at work and had to go home.

“I got an emergency appointment with my GP and was referred to hospital.

“It felt like my head was crushing, but at the same time like it was going to explode.”

It was at the hospital in Kirkcaldy that Shona learned the devastating seriousness of her condition after she was given the CT scan.

“I thought it was just to rule things out,” she explains. “But when the girl, who I knew, rubbed my hand and said to take care I knew she’d seen something.

“When the consultant came to see my husband Kevin and myself he said I had a bulging aneurism in my brain.

“I was blue-lighted to the Western General in Edinburgh and the surgeon said that 24 hours more and I’d have been dead.

“As it was, I could still die during the operation.

“I was in total shock, trying to take in what was going to happen.

“I was told I might not recognise anybody after the operation, be left paralysed or just not wake up at all.

“It was the scariest moment of my life.”

Shona was advised to say what could have been a final farewell to children Hayley, Nicole and Robbie and her