When they saw the bleed in my brain at Westfield they decided to send me to St. Vincent's in Erie which is the closest stroke center. Normally they would put me on a chopper and life flight me. Because of the tornado watch everything was grounded. So I got my first ever ride in the back of ambulance (two!) but missed out on my first helicopter flight. Ah well, I wouldn't have been able to enjoy it anyway.
Donna and Rachel tell me that the ambulance told them NOT to try and follow them. It then promptly took off like a bat out of hell. That's fine with me.
Entry to the Intensive Care Unit at St. Vincent's is a bit of blur. I remember lots of good nurses and folks helping to get as comfortable as they could. It was also the beginning of what became a series of surprises for them.
I was a stroke patient so they were going to put in a catheter.
Oh no they weren't.
Those who know me well will probably not be surprised that even in the middle of a stroke I was not only willing to argue with the staff but that I could convince them to give me a chance to do it my way. My ongoing success with the urinal bottle was something of head shaker for them for the rest of my stay. Apparently most guys have trouble with this process. If anyone's interested I can send any guy facing hospitalization with simple clear instructions. LOL.
The other surprise was my lack of "deficits", all those problems we normally associate with stroke. No weakness, no blackouts, no verbal problems, no memory loss. There's no real explanation for it. Was it a miracle? I can't argue with that. The mortality rate for this kind of stroke is actually pretty high so just the fact that I'm sitting typing this out is a miracle. Divine intervention or "winning the lottery"? Don't know. I'm thankful for whatever grace has come my way.
There was, of course, the constant routine of pills and blood draws including all night long. It's exhausting.
Beyond that my biggest problem was boredom. I felt pretty good (drugs help). In fact I was thinking about going right back to work the following Monday. Today I know how foolish that really was. If I'm lucky I'll be doing some light office work NEXT week. One day at a time.
The best news was from the CT angiogram where they run a catheter up into my head and release dye to take a look at the various blood vessels looking for any other problems. The test takes about 30-45 minutes but you have to lay flat afterwards for 6 hours. And you can't move your right leg much at all. Fun. The good news was that the initial test was all good. Even better was that since the test is basically a complete survey of the blood vessels. I now know that I have no abnormalities, no obvious potential future problems hiding up there. And that there's no greater likelihood that I would have another event like this than there was that I had this one. Statistically insignificant. I can live with that.
What comes next? I'll share my thoughts soon.
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