Learning from a stroke...it's a no-brainer

“That’s your best friend and your worst enemy – your own brain.” (Fred Durst)

“All I kept saying to everybody was, “I want to go home.” And they sent me home!” (Dorothy, The Wizard of Oz)

Just over two weeks ago, Friday, March 5, I had a stroke.
The left side of my face was drooping, my speech was slurred and I was shuffling my feet as I made my way from the bed to the bathroom. Oddly, I wasn’t as worried about my speech as I was my feet. I thought consciously about picking up one foot and placing it in front of the other. It didn’t help. To walk normally would have taken even more concentration and time. I understand now, when I hear how some people have had to relearn how to walk and talk again after a traumatic brain event. Of course, I never thought it was going to be me. Even focusing on enunciating didn’t seem to help; the facial muscles didn’t want to move the way I’ve made them move all my life. I had a slight headache, nothing major. It was like brain-freeze, and the body was treating it like peer pressure. “Normal” speech seemed to take as much effort as it takes to scream in a nightmare, and all  you end up doing is waking yourself up in the effort. This was definitely a dream I wanted to wake from. I tried to go through my morning duties of feeding our parrot, Ruby. My husband watched me shuffle into the room to get Ruby’s dishes. Suspicious, he tried to engage me in conversation as I came back with the dishes. He immediately turned to the computer to look up symptoms of a stroke, as that was his first thought. When it confirmed what he was observing, he told me to sit and that he was going to call an ambulance since I’d had a stroke. As much as I wanted to protest, I knew I would be unintelligible. I finished feeding Ruby and headed back to my home office. As much as I hate to say it even now, I knew he was probably right. Something was wrong.  I sat at my computer and I had difficulty performing the simplest Google search.  My fingers now betrayed me.

The Emergency Medical Technicians (EMTs) arrived, talked briefly with Mark and me, had me squeeze their hands. (I was to learn that when you have a stroke, you get to hold eveybody’s hands.) Our neighbor arrived to help keep the dogs under control. A stretcher was rolled in to the living room. I was wondering if it was going to fit. It did. They helped me stand and make my way to it, where they belted me into it. And everyone agreed which hospital I was going to. This was possible, I believe, because I wasn’t in immediate distress. Turns out my husband was smart, too, to call the neighbor to help with the dogs. I heard later that Bear tried to jump into the ambulance with me. I would have been fine with that.

Dr. E. told me that any day I didn't have to have him
performing brain surgery on me was a good day.
I didn't know if that meant he wasn't very good at it,
or that I wouldn't be. 

At one point in the ambulance, I heard them announce my blood pressure as 166/110. Given everything that morning, I thought that was pretty good. By the time we arrived at the hospital, my BP improved. The neurosurgeon with a great haircut came in and talked with me. I held his hands and he told me that he wasn’t going to be doing brain surgery on me today. I thought that was a good thing since he’d probably want to shave my head. Dr. E. understood my concern. He told me that any day I didn’t have to have him perform brain surgery on me was a good day. I don’t know if that meant he wasn’t very good at it or he thought I wouldn’t be very good at it. Either way, I didn’t get a free head shave. (damn it!). The neurologist, Dr. E, praised hubby’s diagnosis and his quick action, saying he saved my life. Since my day job requires attention to detail and the ability to focus, I couldn’t agree more. I am grateful he did for me what I probably wouldn’t have done for myself.

Dr. E. asked about my medications and as soon as I told him I was taking a low dose aspirin, he told me to stop at once. Apparently, for 80% of the population, an aspirin a day is a good thing. I’m part of the 20% that is the exception. My stroke was not the result of a clot or blockage and thinner blood could have meant more bleeding into the brain. I had only started on the low dose aspirin in the previous two weeks.

For someone not accustomed to hospitals, much less intensive care, I knew I was in for some new experiences when the ER nurses removed my t-shirt, wrapped me in a hideous hospital gown and then reached up underneath the gown and, with cool hands, pulled my jeans and underwear off of me. I thought I had traveled back in time to the 70s.

I’m happy to say that after the CT scan  revealed a brain. It was great to have at least that much confirmation.

Up in ICU, I looked at the plastic urinal I was expected to use with some trepidation. Was it really OK to pee in front of the staff? For the record, no one walked in while I was using it, but when I was done, I stood it on the nearby tray like it was an Oscar for them to pick up and thank the Academy. Sometimes it magically emptied itself. One tech deemed it necessary to announce ‘when you gotta go, you gotta go’ every time she came in and emptied it.

Because the stroke was caught so quickly, my time in ICU was short. I got to go home after two days. Don’t get me wrong, the ICU Wi-Fi was good, but there’s no place like home. The speech therapist had been in to give me some exercises to make sure I wouldn’t swallow my tongue while eating. A physical therapist had gotten me up to walk around the ICU. I did fine.

Fastforward to the followup appointment and the doctor walked in and told me I looked fantastic. That’s always good to hear. There were a lot of things I didn’t know about strokes, even after going to the Internet. A stroke is a brain thing, not a heart thing. Dr. E told me I had hypertension. That means ‘high blood pressure.’ Seems to me, telling me I have high blood pressure is more meaningful; hypertension means little to me…or did. The rules were changed, he said, in 2017 so that anyone over 130/80 had high blood pressure. My first thought is that had to come from the pharmaceutical companies to sell more drugs. That might be true. On the other hand, persistent high blood pressure is a bad thing. Think about holding a heavy weight over your head. After enough time, your arms will tire from the stress. That weight is coming down. And that is what happened to me. It’s not as though the pressure spiked suddenly. It’s just with time, the blood vessels weakened and allowed the blood to stream into my brain. Again, note that, for me, blood thinners would only have made things worse.

The best information, of course, will come from your own doctor. Even today, while using FaceTime with  a friend, I  noticed a slight droop on one side of my face. I know I need to exercise my left side overall, even though I don’t feel noticeable weakness there.

For the most part, it wasn’t a bad experience. The food wasn’t the worst, though nothing like home. One of the best parts was when night nurse Joe came in to tell me that, since he’d seen me turn myself over in bed and sleep well, that he would not be coming in at 2 a.m. to wake me and see if I needed anything to help me sleep.

If I can offer any words of wisdom  from my own experience, if you have learned you have a history or tendancy toward  high blood pressure, learn how  to lower it immediately, without fear. Sometimes it’s as easy as a daily walk. Some changes to diet will help, too. Do it for you. And your overall health, because even if you do use your brain, you can lose it.

You might also want to judge whether there is enough room for an ambulance stretcher in your living room.

When you wake up having had a stroke, call for the ambulance first, and then put on clean underwear. Eventually, someone will pull them off of you and (maybe) judge you.

Kenneth continues to recuperate at home where he doesn't have to wear hideous hospital gowns and can be as naked as he wants to be all day long.