I do not remember many details of Friday evening. I remember the other patient in the hospital room was stable and I did not inquire much about him. I do not think I had any more visitors in the evening. I think Connie was exhausted. And it was only twenty-four hours since the incident in the library when I realized I had a problem! This could be a medical condition that takes a few days to sort itself out. What I did not suspect, that my condition would turn for the worse in a few hours.
Connie and I were very grateful for our nanny before the medical urgency started last evening. She went above and beyond to take care of our boys. Carlos was in 6th Grade in the middle school and Nico was in 4th Grade at the elementary school. Their schools were about three miles apart. I do not know what they understood at this point, but I thought that Connie and our nanny were taking care of communicating with the boys last night and today. I imagine they were scared because it was serious. They knew that normally I would go to work on the weekdays. They understood that I was in the hospital and not coming home soon. All that added up to big trouble as far as they were concerned.
I convinced Connie that she could go home and sleep in our bed. She reluctantly agreed and we said our goodnights and she would be back tomorrow. I attempted to watch a little television. She had brought some nightclothes when she came back this morning and I put on my pajamas. That was better than attempting to sleep in the hospital gown. It is hard to sleep in a hospital anyways. They keep some lights on the whole night. I had monitors on my body that were beeping incessantly. Then the nurse or an assistant had to check that I was alert and stable every two hours. I was exhausted too and I finally fell into a fitful sleep.
In the middle of the night, either I knew something was wrong with my body or the nurse had alerted me. I did not know what was going on, but it turned out that I had the second major stroke in less than a week. I lost all of the motor function of my entire right side. I could still feel, but I could not move my right leg or my right arm or hand. I was going from a bad state with losing my way of verbal communication to a worse condition. I am naturally pessimistic. I thought about the water glass was half empty, not half full. I felt that I was drowning.
I suspected that they contacted Connie, but there was not anything she could do. After I was home, people would often ask me was I in the hospital when the second stroke happened? It did not matter as the hospital doctors and nurses could not stop the strokes from occurring. They did not know where my clots were being incubated. I was a ticking bomb waiting to see if another stroke or a fatal stroke could strike. I prayed that my time was not up!
To be continued in a later blog. Please leave your comments!
#strokethivors
