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Thursday morning, laying in bed watching television with the DVR paused while my wife watches Facebook videos on the laptop. She says "OK that's it, watch your show."
I lean over and look at the TV thinking "I should un-pause this show now...but I can't. I can't move." I feel like I'm sleeping but I'm wide awake. Michele says I leaned over and kissed her then just layed there. She looked at me and saw my face droop. She jumped up on my chest and grabbed my face saying things I can't understand (works in a local ER as a tech) and immediately called 911.
The volunteer medic crew assess then transports me (Michele says she almost giggled when they asked me to put my arms in front of me and put I put up my dukes like I was gonna punch them!) to the ER where they immediately gave me TPA (clot busting drug vital in stroke treatment) and called for the bird. 20 minutes later I am Washington Hospital Center getting wheeled onto the table so the docs can find and remove the clot. 18 minutes later they got it. I'm told the doc was dancing cuz he got it out so fast, before even all the tools were layed out!
Thursday was very rough for me. Couldn't talk right, mixed up words, myriad of docs asking me to say this and that, looking and pictures and not able to say what I was seeing...I knew what I saw, just couldn't say it. In ICU Thursday into Friday and everytime I woke up and starting repeating the names of my family that were with me in the initial hospital (in the first ER everyone was "Joe Murphy...me, my wife, my kids...everyone!) So I wake trying to say "Michele, Kristen, Karissa, Anthony, etc and then remembering from my EMT class the Cincinatti Stroke Scale saying "You can't teach an old dog new tricks." Stroke patients will mix up or completely skip some of those words. Thursday, I was ****ing that up royally. Friday morning? Nailed it!
So here it is Sunday in a normal room waiting for a Monday release. My speech is much better, I'd say 95%. I still have a bit of decreased sensation on my right side as far as tingling but I'm walking with no issues. I'll be on blood thinners for a month because the site of the clot showed a small dissection in my carotid artery. Basically the lining of the artery has sort of de-laminated a bit. But all in all I'm good. Funny thing tho...the docs talk about what may have caused it (neck trauma, lifting weights or even just spontaneous) and how in the future I will have to be careful and what's my first thought? I hope I can still do trackdays!!!
I got real lucky. Lucky my wife is in the biz and knew what was going on. Lucky the ER at Calvert Memorial got me on TPA so fast and shipped me out of there to WHC. Lucky the stroke team doc got my clot out so fast. Anyone one of the steps out of wack and I could've have been royally screwed...or dead. Every day is a gift, people...seriously.
Hopefully everything works out great in the future and I'll be back ripping it up on track.
I lean over and look at the TV thinking "I should un-pause this show now...but I can't. I can't move." I feel like I'm sleeping but I'm wide awake. Michele says I leaned over and kissed her then just layed there. She looked at me and saw my face droop. She jumped up on my chest and grabbed my face saying things I can't understand (works in a local ER as a tech) and immediately called 911.
The volunteer medic crew assess then transports me (Michele says she almost giggled when they asked me to put my arms in front of me and put I put up my dukes like I was gonna punch them!) to the ER where they immediately gave me TPA (clot busting drug vital in stroke treatment) and called for the bird. 20 minutes later I am Washington Hospital Center getting wheeled onto the table so the docs can find and remove the clot. 18 minutes later they got it. I'm told the doc was dancing cuz he got it out so fast, before even all the tools were layed out!
Thursday was very rough for me. Couldn't talk right, mixed up words, myriad of docs asking me to say this and that, looking and pictures and not able to say what I was seeing...I knew what I saw, just couldn't say it. In ICU Thursday into Friday and everytime I woke up and starting repeating the names of my family that were with me in the initial hospital (in the first ER everyone was "Joe Murphy...me, my wife, my kids...everyone!) So I wake trying to say "Michele, Kristen, Karissa, Anthony, etc and then remembering from my EMT class the Cincinatti Stroke Scale saying "You can't teach an old dog new tricks." Stroke patients will mix up or completely skip some of those words. Thursday, I was ****ing that up royally. Friday morning? Nailed it!
So here it is Sunday in a normal room waiting for a Monday release. My speech is much better, I'd say 95%. I still have a bit of decreased sensation on my right side as far as tingling but I'm walking with no issues. I'll be on blood thinners for a month because the site of the clot showed a small dissection in my carotid artery. Basically the lining of the artery has sort of de-laminated a bit. But all in all I'm good. Funny thing tho...the docs talk about what may have caused it (neck trauma, lifting weights or even just spontaneous) and how in the future I will have to be careful and what's my first thought? I hope I can still do trackdays!!!
I got real lucky. Lucky my wife is in the biz and knew what was going on. Lucky the ER at Calvert Memorial got me on TPA so fast and shipped me out of there to WHC. Lucky the stroke team doc got my clot out so fast. Anyone one of the steps out of wack and I could've have been royally screwed...or dead. Every day is a gift, people...seriously.
Hopefully everything works out great in the future and I'll be back ripping it up on track.
