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.