Kelsey went to get my wife. The hospital people kept coming in to ask me how I was doing. After the cat scan, one of the doctors told me he didn’t think I had a stroke. He changed his mind after the MRI.
Jackie got there and asked me how I was? I hadn’t had the MRI yet. Maybe I started crying and then made a joke. Maybe I told her I’m sorry because we’re both have pre existing conditions and I have no insurance and that’s why I started crying. Maybe I knew I had fucked around for a good part of my life and have little monetarily to show for it and I was not prepared for this. Maybe I knew this was going to be hard on her MS. She pulled up a chair and sat down next to me and held my hand and maybe that’s why I started crying because I was glad she was there. Maybe I started crying for all those reasons.
Anyway, I think when she got there and asked me how I was doing I started crying and then made a joke. “I’m a cheep date now. I come pre slurred.” Or something like that.
Some time there I went to have my MRI. It confirmed I had a stroke in my brain stem. Eventually here, I’ll get my records so I can fill you in on the technical details. In layman’s terms, what happened when I had my stroke is I’m pretty sure plaque broke of from somewhere and caused a blood clot in my head deigning blood to a small part of my brain causing that part to die. I’m not sure about the whole blood clot thing so I’ll have to get back to you on that, but they did say part of my brain died. It’s the same mechanics as having a heart attack except in the head. It was taking it’s time, shutting of a nerve pathway here and there. I thought what happened had happened and here I was. It was only happening, and it was still early.
I think from the emergency room they transferred me to a ward in between ICU and regular hospital care. I was in a single room, which surprised me. They set me up with a fluid drip and I didn’t feel all that bad. I had right side weakness and my voice was slurring some, but I could go to the bathroom by myself, and tomorrow I didn’t have to work outside In the cold. It seemed a tough way to get a week or so off work, catch up on my sleep, but I wasn’t going to grouse. Kelsey, I think, came back and gave Jackie a ride home. I watched a movie on TBS. We don’t have TV at home.
In the morning I was stiffer on my right side, I could barely lift my arm and my fingers didn’t work so good. I was a little less stable when I got up to go to the bathroom. I got a shot in the arm of some kind of blood thinner. I would get that shot three times a day, either in the arm or the stomach, my choice, for the next three and a half weeks. I wasn’t allowed to eat or drink yet. The squeezed some stuff out of a tube and rubbed it on my lips and teeth with a tiny square sponge to moisturize them. It seems they didn’t know if I knew how to swallow anymore, they were worried I might swallow whatever they gave me into my lungs. I guess if you do that with water it gives you pneumonia. I don’t know what happens if you swallow a bite of Salisbury steak into your lungs?
I saw about half a dozen doctors that day. They must have compared notes because they all came in and asked the same questions and did the same things.
“Big smile. Raise your brows. Squeeze my hand. Harder. As hard as you can. Put up your. Put up your dukes.” The demonstrated. “Don’t let me pull. Don’t push. Step on the gas. Don’t let me pull. Close one eye, close one eye follow the light. Close the other eye. Lean forward. Big breath, another, another, one more.”
That isn’t all of them. And the never say anything about them. They just all come in and do them. They introduce themselves and any body that might be with them. If there’s one that one of them they refer to you as “the patient” and talk like you can’t here them. I got a little better until about noon. And then I started stiffening up again.
A speech therapy doctor came in a very cute slim blonde, and talked to me about the importance of over articulating when I talked. She gave me some exercises to do with my tongue. She smiled a lot and was very friendly.
Jackie came about one in the afternoon and asked how I was doing. I said I seemed to be worse. My sister Clara came and did a good job trying not to cry when she came in the room. I was the big brother. I was at her house two days before when we had our New Years with relatives get together. Now here I was in a hospital with an IV drip, slurring my speech and my smile not quite working right and my right eyelid drooping.
Wednesday, April 28, 2010
Monday, April 26, 2010
January 4, 2010
On January 4, 2010, after our holiday break from work, at about 7:30 in the morning, I stopped at the drive-through at Burger King for a dollar breakfast muffin and a senior coffee, then parked in front of the job site on Racine and 31st about a half hour before work. I ate my sandwich and listened to NPR. It was the first day back at work after the two-week, Christmas break, a week of which was paid. Work started at 8:00 am. By 9:30 AM I was in the emergency room at the Jessi Brown VA Hospital in Chicago with slurred speech and a little difficulty walking.
At work I first noticed I felt tentative carrying a heavy pre-hung, exterior door with Lucas. I figured it was due to the cold morning, ten degrees maybe, there was snow on the ground, and I was walking over frozen jumbled bricks. We were building a new house, cinder block with a brick veneer face. Before the break we had just put the roof on and got the windows in. Now we were putting the doors in, trying to close it up and get some heat in it so we could work without freezing our nuts off.
I was in the basement, no floor yet, with Bill, my boss. He was going over with me how he wanted the door put in, how it needed to be framed to work with the interior walls and the height the floor would be. I noticed my speech slurring trying to talk to him. I had noticed it before when Lucas and I took the door out of Bill's van. I told my self it was the cold. I tried to correct without success. I tried harder to speak clearly. I still slurred. I had to go out to my truck to get a tool. Lucas and Bill were on the first floor talking about another door. It was hard to pick my way over the brick. I stumbled a little. They asked me if I was alright. I told them no. I started to cry. I said I couldn’t talk right and I didn’t know why.
“It’s cold,” Bill said, coming down the steps. “let’s put you in your truck for a little bit to warm you up.”
We got me in my truck, a good-looking, red F150. He went back to the job. He came back in a minute fishing in his wallet. “Here’s an aspirin just in case you might be having a stroke.” I think that had occurred to me as a possibility. “I carry a couple," he said, "because I have high blood pressure.” He left and came back with his son, Kelsey, who had just got out of the army after serving more than one tour in Iraq.
“How are you doing?” Kelsey asked.
“I don’t know.” I was scared.
“What do you want to do?”
“I don’t know,” I said again.
“Do you want to go to the hospital?”
“Ya.” I started crying again.
“You be okay,” he said. “Will take my car. Can you walk?”
“I think so.”
I got out of my truck. He took my arm and led me to his car, a Dodge Durango. The hospital was fifteen minutes away. In a half hour I was in a room in the emergency wing. About ten people in white or light blue clothes rushed in and started doing things to me. I watched the clock on the wall. I figured I could put off calling my wife until 12:30. I always called at lunch. I had until 12:30 to call her and tell her I had to go to the hospital but everything was all right. I seemed to be getting a little better.
They took blood, blood pressure, got me ready for an IV. Sent me for a cat scan. Several different people came in and asked me, “How are you doing, Mr. Lipuma?”
“I don’t know. You tell me.”
About 11:30 I asked the emergency room doctor what was going on. When did he think I could go home?
“I don’t know,” he said. “With your voice slurring like that there’s something going on. You’re definitely here over night.”
I called my wife. I was in the hospital three and a half weeks.
At work I first noticed I felt tentative carrying a heavy pre-hung, exterior door with Lucas. I figured it was due to the cold morning, ten degrees maybe, there was snow on the ground, and I was walking over frozen jumbled bricks. We were building a new house, cinder block with a brick veneer face. Before the break we had just put the roof on and got the windows in. Now we were putting the doors in, trying to close it up and get some heat in it so we could work without freezing our nuts off.
I was in the basement, no floor yet, with Bill, my boss. He was going over with me how he wanted the door put in, how it needed to be framed to work with the interior walls and the height the floor would be. I noticed my speech slurring trying to talk to him. I had noticed it before when Lucas and I took the door out of Bill's van. I told my self it was the cold. I tried to correct without success. I tried harder to speak clearly. I still slurred. I had to go out to my truck to get a tool. Lucas and Bill were on the first floor talking about another door. It was hard to pick my way over the brick. I stumbled a little. They asked me if I was alright. I told them no. I started to cry. I said I couldn’t talk right and I didn’t know why.
“It’s cold,” Bill said, coming down the steps. “let’s put you in your truck for a little bit to warm you up.”
We got me in my truck, a good-looking, red F150. He went back to the job. He came back in a minute fishing in his wallet. “Here’s an aspirin just in case you might be having a stroke.” I think that had occurred to me as a possibility. “I carry a couple," he said, "because I have high blood pressure.” He left and came back with his son, Kelsey, who had just got out of the army after serving more than one tour in Iraq.
“How are you doing?” Kelsey asked.
“I don’t know.” I was scared.
“What do you want to do?”
“I don’t know,” I said again.
“Do you want to go to the hospital?”
“Ya.” I started crying again.
“You be okay,” he said. “Will take my car. Can you walk?”
“I think so.”
I got out of my truck. He took my arm and led me to his car, a Dodge Durango. The hospital was fifteen minutes away. In a half hour I was in a room in the emergency wing. About ten people in white or light blue clothes rushed in and started doing things to me. I watched the clock on the wall. I figured I could put off calling my wife until 12:30. I always called at lunch. I had until 12:30 to call her and tell her I had to go to the hospital but everything was all right. I seemed to be getting a little better.
They took blood, blood pressure, got me ready for an IV. Sent me for a cat scan. Several different people came in and asked me, “How are you doing, Mr. Lipuma?”
“I don’t know. You tell me.”
About 11:30 I asked the emergency room doctor what was going on. When did he think I could go home?
“I don’t know,” he said. “With your voice slurring like that there’s something going on. You’re definitely here over night.”
I called my wife. I was in the hospital three and a half weeks.
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