Home

After, I’d been home a couple of days, my double vision cleared up. After weeks of home therapy, I could finally do a sit-to-stand, and, a few weeks later, I woke up to find my left hand working. My left shoulder was still pretty useless though. I mentioned it when I went to the chiropractor, and she discovered it was fixated. No wonder it hurt for four months. Now it’s actually stronger than my right. I also suffered from really bad car sickness, which is much better with acupuncture. Right now I’m doing exercises by myself, acupuncture, chiropractic, and two days of occupational therapy. I’m also looking into outpatient rehab. My INR just started to stabilize the last couple of weeks, so I’ve been having weekly blood draws. I finally finished speech therapy, passed the swallow study, and got the PEG out about a month ago. I still have to take sips and chin-tuck with liquids. I ran into one of my doctors when I did the swallow study, which was fun. I started taking my pills whole a couple of weeks ago.

Rehab

Finally, we settled on the one rehab, and I got to go on another wonderful ambulance ride. I spent three and a half weeks trying to get anything to move and trying to speak well enough that people could mostly understand me. They finally managed help me get all but my left arm and my core to move then my insurance said my time there was up. Due to a strange bladder infection, the rehab kept me for a few more days, so I could be on an i.v.—my second pick line, which hurt forever and apparently was blocked by a clot. They drew my blood everyday because they were trying to stabalize the Coumadin. I left with six pounds of hand strength, but I am still so greatful to those nurses and therapists because without them, I’d still be in bed. Plus, they were the nicest group of people I’d dealt with, by far—they were always wonderful about my fears and terror of falling. I finally went home in a wheelchair friendly van.

Ohio

I was in that hospital for a couple more weeks. They downsized my trach, and the first night my parents left, the trach became dislodged and the doctors decided to take it out. While they made the decision, I breathed like I was hyperventilating, although apparently my oxygen was fine. Once the trach was out, I went to the medical ICU for a night, and I was on normal hospital oxygen. The one girl—I think she might have been a trainee—was wonderful and tried to calm me down. However, they discovered I didn’t need that and I went of everything the day after, and I cold breathe so much better. At one point, my catheter became dislodged and I was in terrible pain for a couple of days—because I couldn’t peak, they couldn’t figure out what was wrong—not that I had a clue either. I was still totally paralyzed although I could slightly move my right fingers and toes and was starting to attempt to speak the last week. Then there was a bunch of hastle about rehab; they kept vacillating between accepting me and not accepting me. I remember at least four rooms in different parts of the hospital.

To continue the story...

My landlord called 9-1-1 and an ambulance came. The EMTs thought I'd ODed--remember I was conscious through this all, but I couldn't respond or move. They transferred me to life-flight to go to San Antonio, and I must have lost consciousness at that point because I'm drawing a blank. The first couple of weeks are blurry and I mostly remember snippets, and I'm not sure what was real and what was hallucination, so I'll leave most of that be. I do know I was on a respirator, and there seemed to be a lot of MRIs, which I hated. I remember them putting the tube down my nose to empty my lungs, and I remember them putting in the pick line. I don't really remember them doing the PEG tube, although I do remember it being explained to me. I also remember that they had me on too much blood thinner when they did the PEG and they didn't seem too concerned that it kept bleeding, which is why I had a transfusion when I got to Ohio. I remember that they couldn’t put me flat because I would hyperventilate, although I think those may have been panic attacks. I was on continuous tube feeding. I'm pretty sure they put the first trach there, too. After about two and a half weeks, my parents got sick of hotels and chartered a medical flight to Ohio. One of the EMTs on the second ambulance put me back on respiration. The neurological ICU was full, so I was put in the cardiovascular ICU. They (the cardiovascular nurses) were not pleased. I was given two bags of blood from the PEG tube blood-loss.

Emotional Fallout

Until today, I don't think I'd realized how little I'd dealt with the emotions of having the stroke. I feel like the pieces are shattered and I'll never see light. Melodramatic, I'm sure, but very real to me at the moment. I just don't see the point of carrying on. And this is on major antidepressants...thank goodness for them! I'm really not sure what keeps me moving forward--I'm drowning in all the guilt and anger. Being told someone can't figure out what I would fake for four months finally broke the dam. Yeah, it's all felt as positive as I tried to act...

Blame

“Oh yeah, that would be a good idea (regarding sending a card)”
“They didn’t have any cards that said what I wanted.”
I wasted two years and countless hours of stress…I moved across the country…why???
One of the hardest effects is who to blame. I’ve pretty much narrowed it down to one person, but really I’m just so angry in general and he does make an excellent scapegoat (and many aspects are his fault—I’ll probably always blame him for the fact I spent an entire day on the floor). But one of the most painful realizations is that there really is no one to blame. I’m still struggling with that one. However, I’m realizing that it could be much worse. It also dawned on me today that the reason it’s so hard to find recovery stories about massive strokes is that most people don’t survive. That really put a pause to my self-pity.

Guilt

I've never felt so guilty--it's there every day I wake up. I think it would be easier in some ways if I had just died. I think that's one reason I'm rehabbing so fast. Completely independent to completely dependent in the blink of an eye. So not cool. For anyone involved. I ruined sooo many lives. Lets just keep this quick so I do the least damage to all of us. I'm reallllly going to need therapy--I don't know how much more I can fake. I'm starting to feel like I'm playing a part.