I am going to tell you about the stroke from my perspective (the words at the beginning were written by my husband). I am going to tell you what I was feeling when I first had the stroke and the days at the Grey Nun's Hospital and then at the Glenrose Hospital. Some of the items I may be repeating because my husband wrote about them too.
May 27, 2015
It was a Thursday after work, my husband (Richard) and I had just finished supper and we went downstairs to watch something on television (we are in a split level house). I was feeling totally fine up to that point. As I was watching something (I can't remember what), I suddenly felt nauseous. So I sat for a few minutes and when I didn't feel better, I thought I would go upstairs a lay down for a bit. Now I thought I had told Richard but as you can see by the words he wrote, I didn't say anything out loud to him. I walked up the first three stairs and then I fell down. Weird, but I just thought I really must feel sick if I could trip on the stairs.
I finally got up to our room, but there was no way I could get to my side of the bed. Again, another weird thing but I flopped horizontally across the bed, and I must have managed to slide over to my side and I closed my eyes. I figured I would just need to sleep it off...what ever "it" was.
Now according to Richard, he came up to see where I was (because I didn't tell him anything). He came in the room and asked what I was doing. I THOUGHT (again, I thought I responded quite normally) "I have to sleep because I don't feel well". As you can see by what Richard wrote in his post, it didn't come out right. He asked me again, and I said again, "I don't feel well". He then said I could to one of two things:
1. I could get in the car and he would drive me to the Grey Nun's hospital, or;
2. He would call an ambulance to take me there.
Wow, I thought for being sick with the flu or something like that. I managed to get out the word "wait" and the word "no". Richard said he didn't care, those were the only two things I had to choose between. So I got on a pair of jeans (I never go out anywhere in my sweat pants 😉), and off we went. The hospital is only about 10 minutes from our house so we got there right away. Remember, I didn't know what was wrong at this point.
We went to the Grey Nun's Hospital Emergency Room and I sat down while Richard talked to the nurse. Then I heard him say, "I think my wife is having a stroke". I was sitting there and thinking to myself, "Oh great, is he going to look like over-protective husband when the nurse checks me and sends me home because I've got the flu".
The nurse came around the partition, and said to me, "Can you squeeze my hands as tight as you can". I thought I squeezed them both very tight, but again, my right side was getting weaker now, and it just slid down her hand. The nurse said "You're right, she is having a stroke. You get her checked in and I will get her to do a CT scan". This whole time, I'm thinking you both are going to looked dumb when a doctor comes and says she just has the flu.
I don't remember much at that point, apparently I got to the hospital in time for them to give me the tPA (tissue plasminogen activator), which would help me after the stroke (you can only have it if you have a ischemic stroke within 3 to 4 hours after the stroke). Then the nurse said they are getting a room ready for me. During the time I was having the needle, Richard called all three of my kids (Zach 22, Aaron 22 and Kennedy 19). I must have been dozing on and off, because the next thing I remember is my oldest son, Zach, being there. Now again, things were very different for me because, it seemed like Richard and Zach were having an argument. Richard told me afterwords they weren't arguing at all. Zach was telling Richard that he should have called the kids right away because they all should have known and Zach would have come down immediately. I remember they were talking and it seemed so loud to me.
By this time, it must have been about 11:00 pm, Aaron and Kennedy got there. Again, I could hear them talking and such, but I couldn't talk back to them. The nurses got me to a "stroke" room right across from the nurses' station on the 4th floor. That night, I didn't get very much sleep because the nurses had to check on me every hour to make sure I was awake and to see if I could answer any of their questions, since I wasn't talking at that time. Also I totally lost all feeling and senses on my right side. I couldn't walk and my right arm was useless at my side. And still, I didn't think I had a stroke, I just thought...I don't know what I thought. It's very weird even now, almost two year's later, it's like everything was so loud but there is a peace as well because it was almost like I was observing outside of myself, what was happening to me.
I am going to separate the posts about the initial days because this will take a bit to remember and I want to include as much as I can from the days at the Grey Nun's and the Glenrose.
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