Saturday, March 22, 2014

Strokes in August

Late last August (2013), I had 3 ischemic strokes.  They were cerebellar and I have very few residual effects On August 23, I had the first one while I was in the shower with my oldest daughter K who was about 2.5 at the time.  I was sitting down and got very dizzy suddenly.  Since I was sitting, I knew that it wasn't good..  I got out of the shower and of course, baby E, who was 11 weeks at the time woke up.  I tried to call my husband, but he didn't pick up so I called one of our good friends who picked us (the 2 girls and I) and took us to the hospital after I tried to call my doctors who were all out since it was Friday.  By this time, I was terribly nauseous and very sick. I went to the ER and I was diagnosed with vertigo.  My husband D met us there and my mom came to pick up K and take her to her house until I was better.  I had a CT scan that day and it didn't show anything.  I was prescribed Zofran, meclazine and Valium.   I spent the entire weekend in bed since I couldn't move without being sick.  I just nursed baby E and slept.  Some time on Saturday I realized that my face had a numb spot on the side of my nose between my nose and my mouth.

On Monday, my husband had taken off work to take me to the ENT to do testing to find the cause of my vertigo.  They checked out my ears and found no problems so they arranged for a nerve test the following week. After the appointment, my husband had to pick up some things from his work because he was going to work from home until I was feeling better so he could watch E.  While I was in the car waiting for him, I was talking to my aunt and I heard a sudden buzzing sound, saw a bright light and suddenly I was not able to speak properly (and I knew it).  I hung up with my aunt and my husband came out to the car.  As soon as he got out to the car, my husband realized that there was a big problem so we started heading to the hospital by our house while he call the ENT to confirm that they agreed that was what we should do.

We got over to the ER and I wasn't able to sign the paperwork (when I tried to write I could only form the top halves of the letters).  I had to wait a while, but once I finally saw a doctor, they quickly got another CT scan and gave me aspirin.  On the second CT on Monday, I had 3 spots so they immediately admitted me and started getting other doctors consulting.  They also did an MRI to make sure what cause the lesions.  The neurologist told me that I had had 3 ischemic strokes.

I'll try to post again soon with the rest of story.