On July 24 I had a stroke. Totally took me by surprise, to say the least.After all, I'm only 49 years old, at least for another week or two. The stress of my life has finally caught up with me.The doctors say that the stroke was caused by stress and high blood pressure. The type of stroke I had is called an ischemic stroke, it occurred deep in side the left part of my basal ganglia. The result was my right side was partially paralyzed. I guess I should tell you all how it happened and what happened. Please take note that the thing that saved me was getting to the hospital within the first 2 to 3 hours. Anyone reading this should pay attention to their bodies, if you feel weird go to the hospital. Better safe than sorry.
What happened was that my daughter and I had just finished eating lunch in the living room. I had put down my glass on the end table and my hand got weak, just as I let go of the glass. I brought my hand in front of me and looked at it, it felt really weird. I started moving my fingers, and then they wouldn't move anymore.I started saying to myself, "something is wrong, this doesn't feel right, I think I'm having a stroke." My 20-year-old daughter asked me if I wanted her to call an ambulance. By that time I felt my right leg, get weak. I told her to call her sister and then to call 911. At that point my speech started to slur. My daughter started to cry. I told her it was going to be okay to go ahead and make the phone calls right now. She was really scared and asked me to stop speaking because it was scaring her. She called her older sister and then called 911. Thankfully, her sister was close by and came right over. My oldest daughter ran to me immediately, crying, and threw her arms around me. I knew she was so scared, both of my daughters were terrified. The look on their faces is not one I am likely to forget anytime soon. My daughter also informed me that my oldest son was freaking out at the news, she said he was hysterically crying. I began to text my stroke status on Facebook, to show my daughter that I was okay and that I could do normal things still. It seemed to make her feel just a little bit better. Then the ambulance got here and started questioning me about my symptoms. The hard part was walking down the stairs, with one leg mostly useless. But we managed to make it down and put me on a stretcher. They got me into the back of the ambulance and then began assessing me for several minutes before we were able to leave. At that point, we jammed out of there and off to the hospital with sirens blazing.
Both of my daughters managed to get there at the same time as the ambulance, even though I told them not to speed. Once I got into the emergency room, things went so fast. They immediately put in an additional IV and the catheter, as well as taking blood samples, then off to get a CAT scan. When we came back, my son, my oldest son came in. The look on his face and the tears coming out of his eyes made me so sad. He was so scared. The look in his eyes was pleading, begging me to be okay. It broke my heart. All the while, I just kept telling him that I was going to be okay that I was going to be okay. And I continued joking around with the ER staff, which made them laugh and made me feel better. Thankfully, a neurologist was in the CAT scan area and heard that a stroke victim had been brought in, so he immediately came downstairs to look at me. After looking at all my test results, he concluded that I was having a stroke. The best course of action he told me, was to administer TPA. He said that when TPA is given within 2 to 3 hours of a stroke it usually has very good results. I really didn't see any other option, of course, so I said, give me the TPA. At that point they began administering TPA, along with some blood pressure lowering medications in my IV. He discussed a few things with me and then they took me up to ICU, where they continue to monitor me. The TPA is a weird type of medication that thins the blood to an extreme degree in order to break up the blood clot in your brain, or in this case, my brain. One of the effects of the drug is that it makes you start bleeding. Any place where you have had a scratch or any place that normally might bleed like your gums. But it does the job that it's supposed to do. After being monitored for a while I was taken up to get an MRI to get an idea of the damage. I have to backtrack here for a minute, I have to say that before getting the MRI I had a roomful of people who worried and who care about me. My friend drove down from where she lives, and even a friend who used to babysit my kids and I haven't seen her for years. She came to be with the kids and to see how I was, she was really worried. Many times we don't realize how many people care about us, until something bad like this happens. My friend told me that her phone had basically blown up with people worried about me and sending messages to me and hugs for me!It was definitely something that I needed! Before the MRI, I was also having an extreme version of restless leg syndrome. It was painful and scary, thankfully, they gave me Ativan in anticipation of the MRI. I'm really glad they did. Because even though I am not claustrophobic, that MRI machine freaked me out! I had to concentrate and breathe, it was really hard. I felt like I was trapped. Panic was tough to keep at bay.
When the results came in, my neurologist told me that I had had a stroke in my basal ganglia. Thus began my Odyssey, three days in ICU, another two days in regular room, and then off to rehab hospital for another week. The good news is that they thought I was going to be in the rehab hospital for two weeks. But I showed them by working hard to regain as much movement as I could. I didn't want to stay there longer than I had to. Every day I worked hard on my speech, and on my physical therapy, I just wanted to go home. I missed my kids and my dogs. I missed my bed and my couch and my freedom.Of course, they cautioned me about all of the things I may not be able to do, some of it temporary and some of it permanent.
I'm making remarkable progress. My speech is still a little slurred, and I feel tired, tired a lot and tongue-tied. My leg is getting stronger. Although I still lose my balance. The other night. I forgot how to sit down on the floor and just basically dropped on the floor and hit my head. Right now, I don't know what all of the damage is yet. It may take some time to figure it out. I have to be very careful as they told me that I may try to do things that are not safe, not realizing that they are not safe. I have a few bruises on the right side of my body from where I lost my balance and knocked into something but it's not too bad. The weakest part of my body and the part that I need to work really badly is my right hand. It is very weak and uncoordinated. I can't really write, but I do try. It's hard to control my hand and it's painful right now I think there is something else wrong with my arm and my hand. Thankfully, I'm going to physical therapy tomorrow and I'm going to have her take a look at my hand and my arm again. The worse thing right now is that while I've been out with a stroke my finances have gone to hell in a handbasket, and nothing is getting worked out. Nobody is giving me any breaks at all and they keep messing up all of my stuff. So I have no money coming in, when it's supposed to be coming in and bills are backed up to it outrageous amount. I'm worried about losing my apartment right now. It's going to take a while to straighten everything out. I just hope I can do it pretty soon. My daughter is going to try to help me tomorrow in making some more phone calls, trying to straighten everything out. What an awful mess. To top it off, my son drove my car the other night without a license, and it was impounded and the police officer talked to me on the phone, but would not help us at all, in fact he was kind of a jerk. My son was pulled over in a sobriety checkpoint. He was not drinking at all. Everything is fine except that he took my car without permission and drove it on a suspended license. I begged and pleaded with the officer, but he wouldn't budge. I told him we had no money at all, but he didn't seem to care. I told him I needed my car to go to physical therapy and to go to doctors appointments and he still didn't care. All he said was that I couldn't drive the car because of my stroke. Duh! So upsetting and stressful. I lost it, I started crying uncontrollably My blood pressure was through the roof, of course. But after reading some of the stuff that I have read, it's understandable that I would cry uncontrollably as it is heightening all of my emotions right now.I'm just trying so hard to stay stress free. Anyway, my son sold his computer today to pay to get my car out of impound. But thank God, I didn't know what I would do. We have zero money right now.... expecting money in the mail, but it's not here yet, so it does me no good. So I have 1 million phone calls to make tomorrow trying to get some help.
Well there you have it. That's what's been happening in my life. I actually wanted to tell you about some great things that happened just before this, but unfortunately, this stroke has eclipsed everything. Not sure how long I'm going to be out of work anywhere from 3 to 6 months depending on how my hand comes along. If I can no longer use my hand to type on the computer, then I'm going to have to be retrained to do something else, I will no longer be able to do my regular job. Thankfully, I have some voice software that translates my speech to typing on the computer.We'll just have to wait and see if I can ever type normally again.
One thing I have to say, my friends rock. My kids rock! I received so many cards from friends who were worried about me and it really cheered me up to get those. I really, really, needed them because my life has changed so much from one little thing that I didn't see coming. I didn't really feel like many people gave a damn about me that they just said they did to be nice (I have such awesome self-esteem, I know. lol), but to receive these cards showed me that they really do care, and it meant everything to me. One friend offered to fly in from back East to take care of me, that was so sweet and so surprising that someone would care enough to fly out to take care of me.
I am indeed blessed to have so many people care about me, and I love them all so much. My life will never be the same again. I have so many things to consider and so many changes to make. It's scary!
I'm going to leave you with a few warning signs about strokes. I hope you never have to experience this for yourself.I love you all!
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