Perspective Granted

I ended my last blog post with the fact I was happy to have perspective on the situation with the Professor. What I meant in terms of PERSPECTIVE was more along the lines of smart-dating and being cautious. And clearly God took it a step further wanted me to gain major life perspective and to remember that He is the only one in control.

My father had a stroke yesterday. He is 62 years old and perfectly healthy.

It began around 8am for him. He was watching TV in his study and went to the kitchen to make a pot of coffee. He suddenly heard a loud piercing sound in his head that eventually caused him to lie on the floor until it subsided. He said he got up an unknown time later and looked out the window and thought it was a beautiful day and said to himself, “I think I’m dying.”

He went back to his study and continued to watch TV, but noticed he couldn’t see all the figures on the TV screen. If 4 people were in a shot, he could only see one of them. He then went to log on to his computer and couldn’t remember his email address or password or anything. Knowing something was wrong he called by mom, but couldn’t figure out how to use the phone or dial her number. Eventually he figured it out and told my mom he was having a heart attack or something and needed her to come home and take him to the ER. My mother, being the acute nurse she is, immediately called 911 and had an ambulance sent to the house. Dad was able to walk down the stairs and let them in. He still had difficultly seeing things directly in front of him and was confused.

They took him to Lutheran hospital moments later. My mom called me crying and said dad thinks he had a heart attack because he felt weird (though she already felt the symptoms were more consistent with a stroke) and told me where they were taking him. I immediately left work and headed over there. He was stable in the ER, although still suffering memory loss and vision problems. They did a CT scan and found nothing, but since something was clearly off they wanted to keep over night. After much back and forth, they opted to move him to St Joseph’s hospital downtown at 2pm, home to mom’s chemo treatments 4.5 years ago.

Both the doctor and neurologist visited with him and noticed distinct balance and vision problems. His memory seemed to improve and he finally recalled some of the things he was struggling with earlier that morning. They ordered an MRI for a more precise scan of his brain which we had done around 9pm.

The results were back right away and confirmed the stroke and they wanted to move him to the cardiac unit to monitor his heart all night. So at 10pm they move him yet again and of course the new nurses ask him all the same questions again. They also told us his right hand seemed weaker than his left during strength tests.

So I felt last night around 11:15pm. It was a long day. Dad is scared. Mom is scared. The tears are present. I am tired.

I am extremely hopeful that he will be fine and make a full recovery. I know from other stories that stroke victims do regain things they lost during the stroke. But this situation still sucks. It’s scary to think your body can form a blood clot like that affecting your brain so quickly.

So I don’t know how long he’ll be in the hospital, but they’re continuing with heart tests today and doing a cardio gram to see what the cause is.

Please pray that a source is found so we can take the steps necessary to fix this. Also pray for his job and that he’ll be able to recover and continue his employment.

I’ll keep you posted!
Love,
Kari