Ross Cassell -> Mimi Gallandt wrote:
 RC> Hello Mimi!

 RC> 22 Sep 08 08:54, you wrote to me:

 RC>>> My father suffered a stroke, his mind is sharp as a tack, but he
 RC>>> suffers a neural deficit on his left side.

 MG>> I think medicine has progressed to a point where more people can have
 MG>> a stroke and survive it. I hope he's doing well.

 RC> He had his in 1991, four years into his retirement. He got up one
 RC> morning like any other, had a cup of coffee and read the newspaper, he
 RC> had a headache, took an aspirin and laid back down to take a nap. He had


 RC> a couple years prior to retirement, had both hips replaced due to sever
 RC> athritic deterioration in the joints. Earlier on in 1990-91, he had
 RC> given up both drinking and smoking. His older brother had passed away
 RC> from a aneurysm in the late 70's.

 RC> When he arose from his nap, he tried to get out of bed and collapsed
 RC> onto the floor, thinking that his legs cramped up.


There was no doubt in my mind that I was having a stroke. Suffice it to say
that I would rather give birth every hour of every day without drugs than
to have another stroke. It hurts *THAT* badly.

My next older brother, the only one of my other siblings, like me got the
maternal family genes in the specific order that causes a condition that my
maternal great great grandmother, maternal grandfather, mother and I have.
It's called polycystic kidneys, the same gene that causes the kidney
condition also causes aneurysms to grow in the brain. It would have been
nice if the doctor who tested me for the kidney thing to see if I could be
a candidate to donate a kidney to him had told me that it is common for
this kidney disease to also cause the aneurysms in the brain because if I'd
known I'd have been able to get it repaired before it burst. At any rate
Chuck (my next older brother) got his kidney transplant (not from me) and
ten years afterward had a stroke the way your dad's was. Unfortunately
Chuck didn't survive his. Other than my sister, who passed in 1999, Chuck
was the sibling I was closest to. I miss them both so much.

 RC> He called my younger brother in to help him, my younger brother didnt
 RC> recognize the symptoms and proceeded to help him massage his leg muscles.

 RC> By that time I had come over and heard the activity going on in the
 RC> bedroom, I went in and immediately saw the left side of his face sagging
 RC> and I pinched him real hard on the left leg to which he said he didnt feel.

 RC> Called Ambulance and family.

 RC> I suspect that the damage had already been done during his nap, nothing
 RC> my brother could have done would have changed the end result, the

I'm sure you're correct.

 RC> hospital administered the blood thinners and released him, arranging the
 RC> customary visits to the specialist doctors. We all have awoken with
 RC> headaches before, pillow headaches etc, I suspect that him taking the
 RC> aspirin might have made his stroke a little less severe than it could
 RC> have been?

I know that's true for heart attacks, I don't know, but I suspect you're
correct about that.

On my father's side of the family there's heart disease. My father and his
birth father both died of heart attacks so my doctor recently ran several
ultrasounds on my pulse points and the results made him put me on an
aspirin regimen.

 RC> He went through several months of physical therapy, to the point that he
 RC> regained much of his independence back. He is able to walk with a cane,
 RC> bathe himself, drive etc etc. I installed the chrome handrails in his
 RC> bathroom in the shower stall and alongside the toilet.

 RC> In 1993 I took him up to Charlotte NC to have one of his hip joints
 RC> replaced/revised. In the late 90's he noticed what appeared to be an
 RC> angry boil on the back side of his leg, turned out a staph infection had
 RC> festered in there, presumably from the 1993 revision, in 2000 we almost
 RC> lost him when the surgeon went into explore, he had to take the existing
 RC> artificial hip out and leave it out for 6 months, and undergo a major
 RC> antibiotic regimen. But during that operation, he lost a tremendous
 RC> amount of blood and the infection had withered away some of his muscle
 RC> tissue. Doctors said the infection had walled itself off within his leg,
 RC> which is why it wasnt really discomforting him in addition to his
 RC> existing sensory deficit on that side.

 RC> He isnt getting around as good as he was when he got out of PT or when
 RC> he recovered from the 2000 incident, most of that is due to age, he
 RC> doesnt drive if he doesnt have to, but he still has most of his
 RC> independence, he still rides a exercise bike, which he started doing
 RC> when he graduated from PT in late 1991.
 RC> He has one Carotid artery totally occluded and the other is 25%
 RC> occluded, he has that monitored 3 times a year and its been unchanged.

Take the advice I gave to everyone the other day; tell him how much he
means to you and how much you love him now. Don't put it off.

-- 
L'Chaim,
Mimi

fcpnmimi(at)cox.net

http://www.myspace.com/fcpnmimi

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