I wish that was the start of a great joke, but it’s the actual truth. A blood clot struck his brain and caused paralysis of his left side.

When the alarm went off last Thursday morning, (one week ago) he couldn’t get out of bed because his left arm and leg were numb. Daughter and I got him into my car and called 911 and told them we were bringing him in to St. Mary’s Hospital (the closest one). They tried to get us to accept an ambulance, but Husband didn’t want to do that so we started for Blue Springs. The emergency operator called back and said there was no point in going to St. Mary’s because they didn’t have a neurologist on staff and asked us to let an ambulance take him to Centerpoint Hospital in Independence, Missouri. She kept insisting that we let an ambulance meet us along the way and transfer him, but I knew that would take longer than me driving him. I told them we were already on our way and that I would drive him to Centerpoint. We got him there and took him in to the ER. They gave him some medicine to lower his blood pressure because it was 222 over 180. The ER tech looked like she was pretty scared when she saw those numbers. They gave him several doses of blood pressure lowering medicines and kept him there until they could get a room upstairs. He was assigned Room 633. He was well enough that he made a joke about it not being room 666. A staff doctor came in and checked him, and said it looked like a full-blown stroke instead of a TIA, and that they would need to run a bunch of tests.

They ran a ton of tests, CT scans, MRI’s, heart echo, cardiograms, sonograms and more that I can’t remember. The doctors confirmed that he had a full blown stroke, located in the parietal area of the brain. We had hoped that it was a TIA, a transient ischemic attack, (a mini stroke) but with those you regain motion in the affected area pretty quickly, and his damage is still there. His left leg has some mobility (he can lift his leg about three inches off the bed, but when he tries to stand on it, it buckles under him). His left arm just hangs (or lays on the bed). The doctors still think that with therapy he will regain a good deal of use, but they aren’t making any promises. When the therapist worked with him yesterday, they were able to get him to focus on the leg and straighten it enough to “lock” his knee into place. This allowed him (with assistance of two therapists) to take one step towards the chair to sit in. With the arm, they had him use his right arm to lift the left one and exercise it. When they had him hold it up at chest level, and pull his wrist toward his chest he was able to get a little jerk motion happen from the muscles, which was encouraging that some of the neural pathways are still intact and can be rebuilt.

He was transferred to the hospital that is closer to us now, because they have a floor that is a dedicated in-house physical rehabilitation unit. (I hate saying my husband is going to rehab - LOL)

Already seeing some progress though, as he has regained a little movement in his arm, and can stand up with a walker. They put him in a wheelchair and he is able to drag himself forward with tiny steps. (Can’t use the wheels because the left arm is paralyzed and if he only used his right hand he’d just go in circles. I’m not being cruel, that was HIS joke - LOL)

If you know any good clean jokes, please share them, as Husband is getting daily visits from the chaplain and they are exchanging jokes. Plus I could use a good laugh.

Thank you for your love and support.

Categories: Family