All:
Time flies when
you're having fun. Indeed.
Last Saturday, 5/19,
I had an ischemic stroke and went to hospital for a tPA, basically a clot
buster. It worked. I regained most of my
major motor functions in short order. I made it home 5/21.
By Sunday, 5/27, I
felt well enough to do my first post-stroke swim workout and I have made five
through Friday, 6/1. I do well enough on
short stuff, but I don't think I can keep my heart rate elevated high enough to
swim a 150+ at a decent pace.
The cause of my
stroke remains a mystery. In my initial
CT/MRI exams, the docs found evidence of at least two prior strokes, ones so
small I never knew of them but they left their infarct signatures in my brain,
such as it is. I find, though, that
nearly a third of "old" folks like me have had such silent strokes
and never knew of them but for a subsequent scan with a different purpose. So old strokes aren't likely to tell me much
about my recent episode.
I turned next to an
odd phenomenon: my low resting pulse rate--typically 42-51 bpm. I actually have personal records dating back
about seven years that show a pulse typically just over 60. That rate has declined pretty steadily, some
of which I attributed to some beta blocker drugs I was taking for hypertension
but a lot of it seems to have come from left field. I thought this "clue" might help us
figure out why I formed a clot that lodged in my brain, but then I discovered a
colleague who is younger than I, not a endurance athlete or such, and who has
an equally low resting pulse but no stroke history. So, back to square zero--no clue what brought
on the events of May 19.
I find that my legs
seem to tire sooner than expected, I loose balance or take missteps, and my
speech, typing, and handwriting show "deficits" that seem to be
stroke related. At the same time, I
realize that some of this faltering has naught to do with any "brain
attack" and is just me being me. In
the past, I ignored such events, and now I ask whether they are stroke related.
Truth is, I don't know.
In what is looking
increasingly like a desperate attempt to come to grips with what is going
on, I will journey up to UCLA's Stroke
Center and share my story with them July 3d. My
local physician suggested I talk with them to help figure out what, if
anything, I need to do to lessen the odds of recurrence. I am getting skeptical they will have useful
information, but I suppose it is worth a try.
Anyway, long story
short, I am pretty much recovered and am just working on the details--like
endurance, balance, and fine motor control.
I made a pretty miraculous recovery, largely because Gini did all the
right things for me. And the clot buster
worked. And I refused to take it lying
down. Now if I can just avoid a repeat…
Tim
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