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.
In some ways, when I think about the fog and silence around brain injury, I’m mystified. How could that happen? After all, we are the most digitally aware generation of all time so we can’t blame it on access to information. We are also more knowledgeable about the pivotal role that the brain plays in every movement, conscious and subconscious decision, and even our ability to interpret and understand what we do, see or feel. So it’s not because we don’t value the brain. And, ultimately, we are a very empathetic generation who have accomplished huge things and are routinely giving to worthy causes.
