So, I had my stroke about 5:50a a week ago, Saturday, May 19. That and its aftermath caps an interesting period for Gini and me. It started in late March, just after our 45th anniversary when her CA-125 marker scores started an upward climb. About the same time, Zoe had gone back into chemo therapy for her lymphoma. By onset of my stroke, Gini's cancer had relapsed, she had a second major operation and had commenced chemo therapy. And we lost Zoe--I still miss her each and every day.
So it was a blessing that, nothwithstanding my stroke, I made a rapid, nearly dramatic recovery. I came home midday Monday--I thought I was ready before then, but they insistented on keeping me for billing purposes-- and was very able to walk, talk, even drive if necessary. In short, I am pretty much fine, with only limited effects on speech (slow), handwriting (crude, smallish), typing (lots of mistakes), and balance (not enough to fall, but occasional missteps and foot-drags). I hope to recover fully in the next weeks and months.
The source of the stroke remains unknown. As with most strokes, mine was the ischemic variety . Basically, this means a clot in my brain prevented the supply of oxygen to keep cells alive, so they started dying. The clot formed elsewhere--the heart is a strong candidate--and travelled to the brain, so the stoke is further categorized as an embolic stroke or embolic infarction. As far as pre-treatment scaling is concerned, mine came in at about NIHSS of 7 on a 0-42 scale.
More later...
Going through my MRIs and CTs provides something of an education--though I'm still clueless as to what brought on the stroke of 5/19.
ReplyDeleteIt seems that I have had prior clots or head traumas in the past. As we have all suspected for some time, my brain is not what it should be, though there is no why to this. I now have had at least three "events," only one of which was noticed.