“A stroke? No joke?” – Part I
Ah, yes. May 22nd, 2010. A day that is forever seared in to my brain – because that’s the day I had my stroke. The technical term was a “right cerebral infarction” – which is Latin for “brain explosion”.
I kid.
It’s been exactly one year since that unfortunate and unexpected medical malady, but I recovered nicely with zero lingering effects … save for nostalgia. Along the way, I managed to have the single best year of my entire life – and that’s saying something.
People always ask, “What happened?” Well – here’s the story in its entirety. Grab a glass of wine – you’ll need it.
I went on a road trip to see my dear friend Jill Famer in St. Louis. We had one of those lazy, girly weekends planned where all we do is shop, eat and get multiple spa treatments. (It’s a lot like my usual weekends – except I got to spend it with my bestie Farmer Jill.)
And then it all went to hell in a hand basket:
7:40am: Wake up in a hotel in St. Lou. I’m up, but definitely not at ‘em. I’m unusually groggy and, what’s more, I’m violently nauseous. It’s a nausea I’ve never felt before. It’s so severe that I’m contemplating not getting out of bed. But I make a half-hearted attempt to start my day.
8:00am: Everything has gotten progressively more difficult to do. Taking a shower took an eternity. Attempting to make some hot tea was a never-ending process. In the back of my mind, I’d already decided I had come down with the flu.
8:10am: It’s official … I’m going back to bed. I grab my laptop to send a quick e-mail and realize my laptop isn’t working. I remember thinking, “What the WHAT? This was just working seven hours ago when I went to bed.” At the time I didn’t notice that it wasn’t my computer that was malfunctioning, it was me. My right hand wasn’t typing (or moving for that matter), but, in my head, I was just typing away with nary a problem. “Odd”, I thought. “My arm fell asleep.”
8:15am: I get up to get some more tea and immediately face plant on the floor. Oops – seems my right leg had fallen asleep too. Incensed, I hopped half-dressed on my good leg up to the mirror. Don’t ask me why, but I tried to say my ABC’s in the mirror. In my head, I was saying them as fast as possible. What I heard out of my mouth was, “Ehhhh, B-B-B-Buhh, ssssss-ssss …”
8:16am: Call my doctor (no answer). Call Jill (no answer). She’s at yoga in some sort of Zen state. Jealous. Break down and call 911. Of course, they can’t understand me, but deduce I’m at a hotel from the Caller ID.
8:18am: Hear the ambulance already on the way and decide to hop downstairs to the lobby. On the way out the door, I grab my computer bag. Even in my fractured state, I knew I didn’t want to be without a connection to the outside world. I’m no fool.
8:22am-9:10am: Completely out of it. Not sure what transpired from here – other than me being argumentative in the ambulance. (Or so they say – I don’t buy it.) And at some point I got a needle plunged in to my gut that somehow brought me out of my haze by about 9:15am.
Read the rest of my medical misadventure (in a much more condensed version) in Part II.
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