Had a stroke.....back home....very lucky...hope this can help someone some day If th

[opos]

I have many many friends on the board and want to tell what could be a life saving story...hope it might help some day.

On May 30th I woke at my normal early hour (about 4am) and tried to turn on the t v...couldn't work the remote...I woke the Wife and said to call 911. If I would have waited to "see how it goes" this might be an entirely different story.

She called...they had her run about 3 little tests while on the phone and I failed 2....Paramedics on the way...they arrived within 5 minutes (only about 1/2 mile away)....did their work and took me to ER at Alvarado Hospital (top stroke and cardiac hospital) and I was in the ER's care within about 1/2-3/4 hour from my initial symptoms.

Spent 14 days in hospital and rehab and am home. I had a clot form of stroke and not the "blow out" kind. It was in a part of the brain on the left side so the few minor weaknesses a came out with were on my right side. A small drooping of the right corner of the mouth...a minor fine motor skill in the right thumb, a very minor weakness in my right leg. I had a lot of confusion as I came out of it but that is gone...memory is fine, speech is fine and understanding is fine...walk with good balance and feeling good but very cautious.

Would have been home earlier but had a 2 day "set back" when I couldn't sleep the first night and they gave me an Ambien. Seems it put me into a deep sleep that they feared was another stroke starting. They did another CAT scan and MRI and found no change and therefore no second stroke. Kept me in ICU the 2 days to make sure. I guess Ambien can have that effect so not something I want to mess with.

I was in the stroke unit in rehab and I am the luckiest stroke survivor ever . The immediate call to 911 (my normal way would be to " rub a little dirt on it") at the first sign...second was the proximity of the paramedics, lack of traffic, and availability at that time...third was the proximity of the hospital and their capablities.

I could be in a very different place today...paralized, wheel chair bound, unable to speak or care for myself or in a nursing home.....but I'm home and sharing my tale with you. Paramedics have a word for time and strokes.."Time is brain tissue"..the longer it takes to get you in and get the cat scan and other tests the quicker you can get treated....and the longer it takes the worse the outcome will probably be..nothing happens until you are at the ER .....many guys (like me) try and tough it through if something isn't just right....trying to tough it through an event like this can kill or cripple for life...a little saying "FAST" paid big dividends for me and it's easy, free and I gladly pass it on to you.

I had heard about FAST about a month or two on TV...about what to do to recognize a stroke and how t o react..

F=any drooping in any part of the face?
A=can you raise your arms over you head and hold them steady?
S=speech...any slurring or inablilty to make sense
T=time.....call 911 immediately..a mistake is worth more than a life.

I'm the poster boy for FAST now.

It's a great Father's day

[arlon]

Great bit of info. I'm glad it worked in your favor so you could share it with us!

[Rcmaveric]

Glad your better. That was a close call.

[rancher1913]

welcome back.

[lightman]

Glad it ended well for you. Take care!

[lefty o]

good to hear your doing well.

[sghart3578]

Very inspirational, thanks for sharing. The lessons learned from your situation may help others. In the mean time I am glad you are all right and we are all glad that you are back.


Steve in N CA

[osteodoc08]

Thanks for the reminder and I’m glad you didn’t wait. We can give TPA within the first few hours if we know definitively when symptoms began. If within 12-24, can do a CTA emergently to see if a clot retrieval candidate. Time is brain tissue guys. Don’t wait!

[glockfan]

wheew. that was a very close call. you've been lucky,all factors were lined up , so you've been taken care of in no time, before the worse struck.

[Hickok]

Thank the Good Lord you are alright!

Also appreciate the "heads-up" on what to do.

[375supermag]

Hi...
Been through this as well.
In 2012 in recovery from surgery I suffered a stroke.
Fortunately the nurse was in my room when it happened, so she was able to call the doctor immediately.
I came through it with no ill effects. The memory issues, speech impairment and facial droop all resolved within about 24 hours.
An MRI showed a small spot on the right side of my brain was affected.
A follow-up MRI a few months later revealed that at some point, I had another more widespread CVA. My neurologist believes it must have occurred while I was asleep because I never realized it had happened.
Still no impairment physically or cognitively.
I returned to work a few months later after recovering from my bout with cancer with no further issues.
Now, in 2018 after a bout with Burkitt's like Lymphoma in 2016 that kept me on disability for well over a year before I was able to return to work in August 2017, I have just retired as of last week.
Still no impairment from the two strokes and my neurologist says I am at no greater risk for another stroke than the average adult male. Heno longer believes that I need to have further checkups.
I have been extremely fortunate...
Three cancer diagnosis in my life, two that were initially thought to be terminal, two strokes, seven major surgeries, 70 radiation treatments (including a dozen and a half spinal injections) and a six month chemotherapy regimen.
Somehow, I managed to survive it all, teturn to work for over ten months and retire on my own terms last week at age 63.

Point of all of this is...
You can overcome this... I am living proof.

[popper]

Glad you are back & doing OK. Warfrin is no friend of mine.

[Der Gebirgsjager]

Welcome back, opos. So sorry it happened to you, but very glad for you that it turned out as it did.

[bdicki]

Good news.

[Pb Burner]

Sorry to hear you had trouble. Glad to hear your doing well in your recovery. Good that you recognized a problem and sought help "fast".

[justashooter]

you are blessed.

i had a right occipital/temporal infarct 16 months ago and woke mostly blind (blackness) and couldn't speak by the time the ambo arrived. 4 weeks in hospital, double stenting, and lots of therapy later i developed a "compensatory sight" that apparently happens in an unaffected part of my brain, because 8% of the brain, mostly in the vision area, is inactive on brain scans, and is scar tissue by now. the docs say that only 5% of people with this much function loss get a functional compensatory gain at this level, which might be 75% of what i had, with "ghost vision" on the left side, in which things aren't really solid.

messes with iron sight shooting, and makes reading difficult, because some of the letters just aren't on the page, until i move the focus point and cover them with working field areas.

there is a "retinotopic relationship" between the degrees and minutes of our visual field that are sensed by the retinas of both eyes and merged into a single stream in the optic chiasm, from which some streams go to an area in temporal that causes reflex reaction when someone throws a baseball at your face, and other streams go to the V1 final processing area of the striate cortex, in which many different specialized kinds of cells interpret things like color, motion, boundary definition, shading, and depth variation. apparently my entire right side V1 and part of the left is burned out, so my sight is happening somewhere else with different kinds of cells, which explains why it is wonky. can't describe what i have, but i'm still on this side of the grass, so i'm not complaining.

[Poygan]

I had a minor stroke a year ago in May. Left side of mouth slightly numb, same for left hand and foot. Didn't do anything about it (was later counseled by my wife). Had a MRI a few weeks later to confirm stroke. Very minor residual effects. Change in meds to include Plavix and a baby aspirin among other med changes. Important point: the effects of a stroke I was told can be reversed if we get to an ER within six (6) hours. Don't do what I did!

[dverna]

Good thinking under stress! Prayers for you and all.

[blackthorn]

Outstanding resolution to a VERY nasty experience. Welcome back.

[bob208]

I had a stroke in feb. spent 2 days in. had none of the symptoms list. just woke up was very irritable with blurred vison in right eye. fought with wife and unloaded coal. by then was blind in right eye. they said the fight and work saved me . it raised the blood pressure and pushed the blockage through. I get my license back tomorrow.