Marc didn't show the usual signs of a stroke: slurred speech, numbness in his limbs, blurry vision or dizziness.
I called his daughter who is a nurse, and she immediately said call 911, he is having a stroke. So I did.
The ambulance came, but funny enough Marc had the strength to fight the three big guys who tried to get him into the ambulance chair. He gripped the bed, then my hand, nearly breaking it.
Marc was so strong, he was able to use his left foot and hand to brace himself against the door jambs, in an attempt to stop himself from being taken from the house. Obviously, this hindered the EMTs from getting him into the ambulance, and they had no choice but to zip tie his hands and legs.
It was horrible to watch.
He couldn't speak, he just had a blank look on his face. Today, he doesn't have any memory of the incident.
I watched from our front steps as they took him away in the ambulance to the hospital, there was no room for me.
A neighbour was outside and had seen the ambulance leave. She yelled across to me, that she would drive me to the hospital.
I quickly showered and changed, and then headed to the hospital. You might ask why I took time to shower. I have no idea. I guess I was thinking, I hadn't showered in two days and could be at the hospital for an unknown period of time, but really I think I was in shock and not thinking straight.
When I got to the hospital one of his daughters was already there, the second arrived shortly after, and then his sister and brother in law arrived.
Marc was alert in his hospital bed when the doctor started to examine him.
He couldn't speak, had no feeling in his right arm or leg, and the right side of his face was paralyzed.
The doctor explained to us that they scale strokes from 1-25, 1 being mild and 25 fatal. Marc's stroke was 20.
The damage to his brain left him with aphasia.
In short, aphasia is an impairment of language, affecting the production or comprehension of speech and the ability to read or write. I'll discuss Marc's communication in another blog.
Because of the severity of the stroke, Marc also had damage to the brain causing apraxia of speech. Again I will discuss more of Marc's specific aphasia and apraxia later.
The doctor then explained we had to make an immediate decision whether to give him a clot-buster drug to break up the clot. This could bring back some of his body movement that was paralyzed, or it could kill him.
It was a tough call but we knew that we had to give Marc a chance of some recovery, and we also knew the condition he was in was his worst nightmare.
The clot-buster was administered through injection, and we waited.
It was somewhat successful in that the feeling in Marc's right leg returned and his prognosis for recovery to walk again was excellent.
Eventually, Marc was moved to ICU. The medical team still weren't sure what caused the clot to his brain. They discovered he had one narrow artery to his heart, which could have been a cause. He suffers from sleep apnea which could have been a factor as well. But there was no definitive reason as to why this happened... leaving us with many unanswered questions.
If you happened to miss reading phase 1-3 of Marc's stroke, you can catch yourself up here.
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