Stroking Out (Literally) (Pt 3)

There's some pretty interesting staff there. Both nurses and doctors have some pretty different 'tudes. Their's a nurse that does your dirty work (I think you know what I mean) for you, gives you sponge bathes and chair baths and afterwards manage to carry on funny conversation each time she showered me, even through  my shower. We were constantly cracking each other up and  humor feeds humor! That nurses's name is Chandra.   There's a chief nurse that has a shift Sunday and Monday that smothers you with kindness. I once asked her she didn't go to church on her off Sundays. Her reply: 'This is my church,.... Giving help to the sick." I thought that was pretty good answer. Her name was Betty, and she treated you like one of her own.   And then's there the nurse who woke me. Big mistake. I don't do mornings, and that goes double for Mondays. Tracy had to fight me tooth and nail, even down to the last pillow to get me  out of bed. If mom hadn't interceded, we'd probably still  be there now. I'm not blowing smoke here, folks.     Then there's the  "Pill Fairy." She took care of my medicines and tracked me down we for those appointments and she was pretty good at it. She had a nice demeanor, and kind of looked like my aunt, at least to me, and she was named, Rebecca.     As for the intern, her name was Rachael and she was from Venezuela. She brought me some of her mom's Argentinean chocolate (and boy, is it different from our stuff!) She just came in the first few days of the week on the night shift, and her soft accent made her a welcome visitor in my room.    So those were the major players, nursing wise. I'd like to thank all of the nurses and staff at the TIRR hospital. I'll introduce you to my therapists in my next post.       

Stroking Out (Literally) (Pt 2)

   So it was Saturday, and I was in what turned out to be a very long, long hospital stay February to April. I'm trying to think of the early days in that stay,  but It turns out that I can't.  Mom told me that that Sunday, when they came in,  dad and her saw the side effects of the stroke had finally taken their toll. They said I was pale, had low blood pressure, the inability to walk, and complete numbness on my left side. I don't remember much after that,  so typical of hospitals and their medicines, right? They make you sleep. I was there for six days and don't remember a one, except for the ambulance transfer. I made the trip over there, TIRR inpatient, kinda' like 10 years before. There were a lot of similarities in the extended visit, like a weeks' worth of a visit in the hospital, little memory of it, and even the mode of transportation to the rehab hospital! Weird huh?      Now TIRR stands for The Institute for Rehabilitation and Research. Yeah, I was a bit disappointed. I thought it stood for Texas Institute for Rest and Recreation, and it's in the  middle of the medical district of downtown Houston, not far from my neurologist's office as I found out later. My first day was hardly memorable, sleeping through all of my classes.  I guess I needed to get all those medicines from the first hospital out of my system. I remember saying that I missed my first day. I also stymied my teachers by saying that. I guess they hadn't heard that a stroke was merely an inconvenience to my life, and to many others as well. As an uncontrolled epileptic, I've had seizures worse than this. This particular stroke was just an inconvenience to me, but just with a longer recovery time.      Back to the subject at hand, my first week. Apparently, I couldn't stay in a regular hospital bed, sprawling out all over the place, constantly moving about, so they brought in something new. It looked like a backpacking tent which was elevated to the height of regular hospital  bed. As a former backpacker, I felt instantly at home.  Apparently, that involuntary movment is called Ataxia, and I had my stroke in the Pons are of my brain. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pons ; http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ataxia. I finally was fully conscious by the second week at TIRR inpatient, and the reason was they had put me on a certain drug that didn't interact with my personal meds very well even though they tried their darnedest to make it make it match. The second drug was much better and that's what brought me to, and that's when I met my nurses and therapists. I've changed their names for privacy. I'll mention a few of the notable ones in my next post

Stroking Out (Literally) (Pt 1)

   Well, you know it had to happen eventually. I stroked out in the literal sense. Being a champion of over 16,000 seizures in 10 years, you just had to  know that something or other was going to spill over into the  rest of the brain. It was bound my head had to miss a day of work without warning.    Yes I had a stroke. After my visit with the neurologist,  he found out that he  hasn't run an MRI on me in two years, so he ordered one. Boy, if only he knew the mess he was getting into!    So the MRI was over, and we were in the parking garage trying to fix a broken jeep. We gave that car a thorough physical, and finally deduced that the fuses must be at fault. So, my dad unhooked the fuse, cleaned it off,  and re-installed it. Miracle of miracles, it worked! The jeep had been having problems to that date, but that was the most inconvenient. Turned out, it wasn't the only time the fuses would conk out. 3/4 of the way home, something went out In that motor again. Not knowing what was wrong THIS time, we had to pull over onto a street in a business district, push the car most of the way up said street, and into a companies' parking lot. All this was after I was informed via cell phone that I had had a minor stroke.    We were picked up by my brother and he took dad and I to the Memorial Sugar Land Hospital emergency room. After filling out the necessary forms, we sat down again, and a few hours later, we were called back into one of the rooms. Now, if only we knew how late it was that I would get a room at the inn, as it were. It was afternoon when I got the call  about the problem, early evening at the hospital when I  was called back at the emergency room, and 9pm when I finally got dinner; a sandwich and chips plus an apple. I really don't remember much after that except that I finally got a room- very late in the night.