Sunday, May 26, 2013

Stroke

Its a really scary word. Terrifying actually especially when you've seen it happen up close.

Mammaw had a stroke. Typing it out doesn't make it any easier, but it happened and now we have to figure out where to go from here.

Our Thursday started with a jolt. Normally I take the phone to bed with me ya know just in case.. Wednesday night I forgot and I awoke on Thursday morning to hearing the phone ring but I couldn't find it. Turns out I had left it in the livingroom. By the time I got to it, it had stopped ringing and quickly searching the caller id and saw that Mammaw had called 3 times. Why did it take me so long to hear the phone ringing and wake up?? I called her back and she said she couldn't breathe. She sounded like she was drowning and I told her we were on the way. I yelled at Mike to get his pants on and get over there. Thank God we only live a few houses away. I called 911 and gave them all the info and as soon as I hung up the phone I went to get my oldest up so he would be up if the youngers woke up and I got dressed as fast as I could and left for Mammaws house.

We beat the rescue squad there. And once they did whatever it is they do they loaded her up and took her to the ER. They told us that it was just a breathing issue and that she'd be fine.
 Mike came home and finished getting ready and left to follow the ambulance. I got the kids dressed and the boys off to school and tried to regain contol of our day. After all they told us it was a COPD flareup and they would get it under control and then release her.

Mike called a couple hours later to ask me to bring Mammaw some clothes that they were fixing to release her and they had brought her into the ER in her PJs and she needed shoes to walk out of there.

I arrange for Kara to stay with the neighbor and make my way to the hospital with Mammaw things. Once there Mike steps out so I can help her get out of the hospital gown and into her own clothes.

And that is when I noticed it.... Something was wrong. She looked horrible and I couldn't make out anything she was saying. I asked her if she felt well enought to be leaving and she attempted to tell me something but it just came out a slurred frothy garble. I asked the nurse to come and see and explain to me what was wrong. The nurse said that she didn't know that she was fine just a wee bit ago but she would call the dr in and have her recheck. I go out to the waiting room and get Mike and tell him what is going on and he too said she was just fine what happened.

While they had her flat on her back assessing and treating the COPD she was semi ok, the hospital, EMS, and even us attributed her not being able to speak well to her lack of oxygen when she said she wasn't able to breathe. But once I stood her up and tried to get her clothes on the blood and oxygen flow was restricted.
We waited to have CT and MRI scans and while we waited she seemed to get worse. Finally we got a diagnosis of Stroke and things went in a whirlwind from there. From the ER they moved her to ICU.

But there is good news, she's doing so well. The only and I mean ONLY indications of a stroke are her slurred speech and a slight facial droop but with the medication she's on that has improved GREATLY. She so far as we can tell has not lost any response in her limbs and her speech is improving every day. We were told yesterday that they moved her from ICU to STEPDOWN at 1am, STEPDOWN is not quite ICU but not out on the regular floor in a regular room either. Then we were told that they would be moving her from STEPDOWN to a regular room sometime last night and hopefully they will be letting her come home sometime on Monday.

So we are waiting to call this morning to see how she's doing and then dh will head up, we can't take the kids up there until she's in a regular room so I'm staying here for now and trading out with Dh when needed.

I'd be lieing if I said we were good, truth is, this has been such a roller coaster, fear, worry, panic, we've run the gambit but in all of this I'm glad I've got GOD on my side and I know that he is in control and I am so glad he is because these past few days I've felt like my world was spinning out of control.  My prayer is that she continues to get better. I don't think she'll ever be 100% but I'll take what I can get and we'll deal with whatever our new normal is as it comes.

3 comments:

  1. Poor Mamaw. I'm glad she's improving. I pray that she will recover and that you can get some rest from the worry.

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  2. Thank you Tiffani. I am so tired but now she is home so hopefully we'll get along with whatever our new normal is and go from there.

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