Imagine if you will it’s almost bedtime, and you start to think about all the things you need to get done tomorrow. Of course, there’s work, tomorrow I need to be there at one. And then, the car is due for an oil change, if I leave early for work, I should be able to get it done in time and you still have to get registered with some other companies for AEP (Insurance Term), it’s just around the corner. I’ll have time to do that during my lunch break. Then you told your son you’d swing by his place to take a look at his jeep, it’s making a strange noise. You can leave even earlier for work, that hopefully won’t take too long.
Sound familiar? Although the list of things to be done will be different, it’s what each of us goes through almost every night. Planning a day so full that we don’t leave ourselves much wiggle room. And when something goes wrong, we stress out. And when we stress out, we cause those around us to get stressed. Not a healthy way to live. All of this is going through your head as you sit in your recliner, half-watching some TV show. Can we call that relaxing?
Then suddenly you start to get dizzy from all the relaxing, and you realize it’s not going away. Something’s wrong and even your wife and little girl struggle to get you to your feet.
I had a heart attack four years earlier, but this didn’t feel like that. This had all the telltale signs of a stroke. 911 was called, but it would be an hour before they got here, one of the disadvantages of living deep in the woods.
So there I sat in my recliner, getting increasingly worse. My wife stroked my face and fought back her tears, and my little girl, clinging to one arm and quietly sobbing, and all we could do was wait.
At about the one-hour mark, just as expected, the ambulance arrived, and by that time I had slipped into some sort of jelly-like state, with my wife almost holding me in my recliner. Speech was something I understood clearly, but I could not form a sentence or answer in understandable words. Nonetheless, questions were asked of me, but the answers came out like some strange alien language until I was no longer asked any questions, and they would speak instead, directly to my wife.
Eventually, the two female paramedics struggled to get me on the stretcher and into the back of the ambulance. There I guess they played a version of guess my weight because I heard one of them ask, “what do you think, about 250? “
I was appalled, I was 183, I had weighed myself that morning.
“250 sounds about right, “I heard a response.
I tried but was unable to respond. In fact, those were the last words I remember hearing.
I woke up in the hospital, two days later, to the sound of my dad’s voice.
That occurred on September 22, 2021. Some six months ago. Half a year in bed and I am considered one of the lucky ones. Most die from the type of stroke I had. The ones that live, die in under four months. Well, I’ve surpassed four months, and at six am still going strong!
We don’t really know why some people die from a lethal heart attack, while others survive it. There is no real reason why when the brain gets deprived of oxygen for hours, it takes them from this earth, but spares a select few.
I’ve been diagnosed with “Locked in syndrome “. Not much is really known about this condition. It is a brain stem issue and has to do with the brain. And if you ask questions about it you’ll get a lot of “we don’t really know “and” only time will tell “answers.
If the “Experts” don’t know, then we are left to assume, that nobody has the answers.
I’m not the man I was before my stroke. Six months in bed will do that to you. Quite honestly, if I had the chance to somehow get up out of this bed, but there is a chance, that everything I learned about myself over the last six months would be forgotten, I’d have a difficult choice. You see I’ve grown over these past six months into a kinder, more patient individual. I don’t think I want to lose that; in fact, I know I don’t.
So, if it takes me a year to recover, and I do believe that I’m going to recover. I will do so while I continue to learn about myself and grow in ways, I think we were meant to grow.
Come along on my journey and discover things about you that are hiding and waiting to be discovered!
On the next edition of Bedhead Bob: Life and Times!
