Diff'rent Strokes

I was away from the blogging desk last week after writing about the Brazos Drive-In Theater.  The morning I posted that, I noticed some difficulty with my field of view - not enough to prevent composing a post and fixing breakfast, but noticeable.  After several hours I was concerned that I had perhaps torn or detached a retina from sneezing early that morning, so, mid-afternoon I went to the local minor care clinic.

Minor care clinics are fine for bumps, bruises, and maybe a few stitches, but they don't have an opthamologist, and couldn't dilate my eyes to see if there was any damage.  A couple of hours wasted, they sent me to the ER at the big hospital downtown.  What's that?  Well, it's a big building with lots of rooms and windows, but that's not important right now.

The ER check-in staff and doctors were great.  Within an hour, they'd run through a decision tree, and had me getting a CT scan, followed by an MRI.  It seems my problem wasn't with my eyes - I learned from the MRI tech that I'd had a small stroke...more about that later.  I found that I would be spending the night.  Bummer.

The next morning, they ran an MRA to check my "Circle of Willis" - the arteries and vessels supplying blood to my brain (yes, they did find one).  My Circle of Willis, for you AT&T, Verizon, and T-Mobile users, does not include Arnold, Mr. Drummond, Kimberly, Pearl, or Todd Bridges' parole officer.  No vascular issues noted.  So then they did a carotid sonogram, and echo-cardiogram to check my ticker valves, another CT (no new indications).  Overall cholesteral under 165, HDL and LDL well within spec, slightly elevated triglicerides. Nothing abnormal.  So, by Monday evening I was way ready to go home.

Unfortunately, Dr. Shangri-La or Maharishi or whatever was more concerned with my bowel habits than whether there was any apparent cause of stroke (something she never discussed with me - absent the MRI tech telling me I'd had one, and being sent to the stroke wing, I wouldn't have known).  The IV in my arm and sleep deprivation caused me to not be able to hold down the, uh, nutrition that was being provided three times a day.  Without anything going in, nothing was going out, and Dr. Mahatma wasn't going to let me out until...well, I'll spare you the details.

Monday became Tuesday.  I kept the blinds closed and lights off, trying to catch whatever rest I could between BP checks, IV flushing, therapists (usually asking the same battery of questions), involuntary vocalizations from rooms down the hall.  I began to think I'd not leave upright.  An x-ray was scheduled to check my innards to see if I had blockage.  I didn't.  But I still got nauseated at the smell of the hospital food.

An Ambien helped a little bit as Tuesday painfully came to an end.  But Wednesday was like Hell.  Finally, early afternoon, IT happened.  The next time the nurse came around, I notified her to tell the doctor and let me go.  By 5:00, the paperwork was being prepared and I could sense freedom.  When my ride home arrived, there wasn't any attendant to wheel me down to pickup, so I talked the nurse (a beautiful young lady who looked like a The Bachelor contestant) into letting me walk downstairs with her accompanying me.

I had a regular, but not huge, dinner, and spent the first night at my folks' house, waking well-rested for the first time in four days, and wolfed down a tasty, but heart healthy, breakfast.  Later, I returned to my house, and spent the day puttering around, trying to get a doctor's note to return to work, and catching up on some projects.  Due to my regular doc's schedule, I wasn't able to get an appointment until Friday afternoon, spoiling my intention to return to work that morning, but did get cleared to return on Monday.

Thankfully, I'm now back at work, feeling fine.  My doc says to wait about 30 days and schedule a stress test, and then he's going to put me on the treadmill, but not make me change my name.

It's all better than the alternative.