slowly she turned

I copied this post from my personal Facebook page from yesterday morning below:

“I’d hesitated to post this, but in the spirit of a public service announcement – if you have any symptoms of having a stroke, it’s SO IMPORTANT to call 911 or get yer butt to an ER right away. Better safe than sorry! Don’t even think about laying down and seeing if you feel better later, or after a nap. There are amazing clot-busting meds available that will most likely fix you but you gotta get them within four hours of your first symptom. If you don’t make that time frame, your recovery may be long and hard and possibly permanent.

“That being said, Mr. Sandy should be getting out of ICU and maybe coming home today (or tomorrow) after having a stroke around midnight on Tuesday. His motor skills are fine, no numbness, and his language was affected a little bit, but that injection, hoo boy, was the ticket to wellness for him. The physical therapist said that he doesn’t even need PT services. The doctors say it is because he got that injection so fast.”

He came home  yesterday afternoon, less than 48 hours after his small stroke. The clot was near the language center of his brain. It could have been much, much worse, since he was losing feeling on his right side also.

Here’s what happened – sometime around midnight as I was settling down in bed, I heard something hit the floor in Sandy’s man cave, and when I checked, he was trying to get off the floor. Now, Sandy often falls asleep in this rolling office chair, and because he wouldn’t tell me what happened, I figured that was what happened and he was embarrassed. He finally said something about his hands getting in an awkward position and wouldn’t let me help him up, so I put a chair near him for him to support himself getting up, and went to bed.

He then watched TV in another room for a few minutes, and then took a shower, and fell in the bathroom. He got up and came into my room and said that he might need to go to the hospital, that he suspected that maybe he was having a stroke. I looked at him carefully and he didn’t show any of the physical signs and he was speaking normally, but he told me that suddenly his hand had raised up in front of his face before his first fall and he didn’t know why. So that was enough to get in the car and go to the ER, although I wanted to call 911, it seemed like a better safe than sorry trip. Fortunately, our main hospital is 10-15 minutes away.

We didn’t say much on the way, but when I got to the parking lot I was confused because of construction, and took a wrong turn. Sandy tried to tell me where to turn, and he couldn’t. He kept saying “cross, cross.” When we got to the door, I was starting to panic and he was trying to get out of the car and walk by himself while I was struggling with what I thought was a wheelchair. I told a passerby that I needed help and he ignored me. There was a police officer sitting in a car in the line of sight who also ignored us. I found a wheelchair, got him inside, told the ER staff he was having a stroke and that he needed to be seen right away. (Other than what happened outside the door, the staff was great, but that door needs to be attended by somebody.)

I had to move the car, which I had left in front of the door with both doors open, and by the time I got back he had been moved to a room in triage. He was losing his language ability rapidly and couldn’t feel the nurses scratching his right foot and leg. They got him to the CT scan room and came back to get me because he couldn’t answer the neurosurgeon’s questions.

At this point, I was very wobbly. An employee had gotten me some water and I was beginning to do breathing exercises. I had thought that I was handling everything with more than an appropriate amount of calmness, but my vasovagal syncope response nearly got the better of me. After I gave the neurosurgeon permission to give Sandy the TNK clot-busting injection, I was tottering, so the nurse got me out of there and then I got some medical attention in Sandy’s bed. I explained that I had been a fainter all my life with an overactive vasovagal response and they said that stress can set it off. By the time Sandy was back in the room, I was sitting in a chair, still a bit sweaty but well enough to deal with everything and he never knew. The nurses and I joked that I did it on purpose because I was jealous of the attention that he was getting.

The injection worked within seconds. (The doctor laughed and told me he said “Son of a bitch!!!”) He was taken to get an MRI to confirm the stroke and blockage. He was able to communicate, although not well, and after a few hours his skin sensitivity and motion was back to normal. His language skills improved more slowly, but he is 99% back to normal with that now. He was required to stay in ICU for 24 hours due to the power of that medicine – there were risks involved and he wasn’t allowed out of bed. By the time he walked with the physical therapist, they said he didn’t need PT at all.

Less than 48 hours after having a stroke, Sandy is home and the doctors said that he has no restrictions other than they told him to take it easy for a few days. He is mostly fatigued from the experience.

Once again, everybody said that it was because he got that injection so fast after his first symptoms that the neurosurgeon declared him fully recovered Thursday morning after having a stroke at midnight on Tuesday.

Now the focus in on his heart and why he had the stroke.

Get to an ER as quickly as possible if you suspect a stroke. Just do it.