It does…

I don’t know what to say. I’m sitting in a lovely house and a lovely place, and I’m still told that it was just one of those things.

Yes, I’ve had another stroke. A bleed. My brain started to bleed and it wound up with me trying to crawl up the stairs. It’s hard to fathom.

On March 7th of this year I turned 50.

It’s a wonderful landmark and also one that makes me stop and wonder. I wonder how I’ve passed through so many years. Back when all of this started… when I was 36.

This story unfolded on April 11th.

I was on the computer. I remember thinking “Gee, how hard is it to click where I mean to click.” I was fighting where I was clicking. It’s hard to describe this to you – imagine trying to click but not succeeding. I mean we do it all the time. Then I realized “Uh oh, I better get upstairs and try to lie down. I might be having a stroke.”

Now I know what you’re thinking. Surely this girl isn’t going to go upstairs and lie down — she knows what’s happening. Well I knew what was happening but in that moment your limbs feel like concrete and your ability to make decisions is severely impaired.

I was trying to make my way upstairs and I tripped on the barrier which keeps the dogs down. Again. And again. I could NOT get my right leg up over the dog wall. By now I wasn’t moving and I put my hands down and then I lifted my leg. It hurt because my leg wasn’t cooperating and the matching arm was also not participating. I finally got over the barricade. And now that I’d managed, I thought “OK. There we go. Now just get into bed.”

It’s ridiculous. I feel like it’s a joke how slow I was going.

I would have asked for someone to come help me but my husband was working and the boys were in Ottawa. I was alone. No one else around. In my mind, I felt like I just had to rest. Everything would be fine and I would recover.

This wasn’t quite like other experiences. It was tricky. I knew that. But I was still stubborn. As soon as I got into bed, I rested. And before I knew what was what, I had a wake-up shake. It was my husband.

I wanted to say I was fine just a little groggy but the words were not there. I felt lost. I felt exhausted. I told him I was just tired. I went back to sleep.

The next morning I woke up and I was trying to get going. I was sitting on the edge of the bed and my husband was there and I asked him if he was going to work. He said “Yes. But I just want to make sure you can drink the water.” i made a dramatic sigh and I tried to sip the water. I missed. “Fuck”. I sat up a little and I tried again. I missed again. “Shit.” I tried to clean up my face and I said “Are you happy?” He left the room.

In this time I rested and tried to think of what to do. The routine has me head down to the computer and spend time with a friend online. I’ll call that friend. I opened my phone which was much harder to do than usual – I video called – that was never done. I tried to think of a way to hang up but I couldn’t. I heard the friend on the other end pick it up and after a while they hung up. In the next step I don’t know if I called or if they called but I said “I’m having a stroke.”

That friend likely saved my life. They talked to me for a little while and then they hung up making me promise to go to the hospital.

I went down to the kitchen and my husband and I sat at the table. I remember the conversation clearly with him are we going to go?

Yes.

It’s now the next day, April 12, so any immediacy is over. By all rights I should be dead.

We spent the morning in the Smiths Falls Hospital where a CT scan revealed a brain bleed. From then we were just waiting for transport to Brockville Hospital. I slept. Kirk tried to as well.

By the nighttime, Kirk was sent home. He had called the boys again, I spoke to them to try to reassure them. And Kirk went home for a sleep. I was eventually taken to the Hospital in Brockville. End April 12. It’s now April 13, a Saturday. It’s never particularly productive to be in hospital over the weekend but I figured I was better off there than back at home.

Eventually the boys were home from their trip and I was settled in the Brockville Hospital where they came to see me. I’m sure they didn’t know what to expect. It was probably a horrific thing to have survived my first stroke as children – with three months away from home – and then to come back and not know what was waiting for them. It was likely a huge relief when they saw me up and talking to them (albeit slower than I usually do).

I managed a call to tell my friend I was okay. They were pretty freaked out and had a lot of questions – more than I could answer. I still imagine hearing me say “I’m having a stroke.” That phrase was all I could say. I think that is what I said, it’s what I meant to say. They made a few jokes to lighten the mood now that I was in the Hospital.

But I had one question: Why?

I had gone 13.5 years without another – I felt quite good. And now it was April 2024 and I was back in the hospital and I didn’t feel so good.

Now, with the benefit of retrospect, I can look back and say I had a lot of pressure. My mother died a year and a bit before my first stroke. This time my father was ill and declining. Dementia and Alzheimer’s had him in their grips. I was his primary caregiver. And now I couldn’t drive.

It was lucky he wasn’t able to conceive of time. He thought I’d just been there. And when I went back to see him (a month later), he still thought I’d just been. I never told him I had a stroke. It would have done no good; he was dying.

That was a hard few months. I gave my brother the reigns for Dad’s care until early June when I was able to take it back. I’m glad things worked out that way… because by July 15th he was gone.