A Turn For The Worse

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.