Stroke of Luck (2)

 I drifted off to sleep at some point after learning I was going to Flinders Hospital for an MRI. I'd told Lib on the phone about it, I told her I'd be in touch when I got there and knew something. I was woken at about 1.00am and told there was an ambulance there to take me to Flinders. I had brought a bag with a change of clothes and a toothbrush when I went to the hospital, so I was good to go. The ambos were good. Ken rode in the back with me. Before we left, he had some trouble getting the machines working after hooking up the wires for the ECG to the tags still on my chest and abdomen. The young lady Ashleigh was the driver. Tall and pretty, I'd seen her shopping in Woolworths in her Paramedic gear. Ken and I talked all the way down. Hell of a nice bloke, he lives in Goolwa, late 40's, played soccer mostly, says he didn't have enough courage to play Aussie Rules, got cleaned up going back into a pack for a high ball in his early days try out. I told him not to confuse courageous with stupid. I was stupid once and dived on a footy when a bloke was charging through from side on and was concussed with a broken jaw. *

We arrived at Flinders in what seemed like no time. Ken kept me talking. I think he found what I was saying interesting, either that or he was very good at keeping me going to break the monotony of a trip he'd done often. We didn't go to a ramping queue, as I was booked in, so we went in a side entrance with no delay. It was 3am as I was wheeled into the stroke ward, to bed 1 of a four-bed ward. It was quiet as a young lady delightful in looks and manner and of Asian appearance rattled of some details and asked questions. I was feeling fine, the question she asked me about whether I consented to be resuscitated should it be necessary seemed a bit over the top, but she explained it was a question she had to ask everyone. I was then hooked up to the ECG machine again and repeatedly a nurse came in and checked blood pressure and temperature and shone a little torch into my eyes to see if the pupil contracted. They always started this check with the question "Do you know where you are?" Then "What month is it?" followed by "What day of the week is it." This whole checking thing went on hundreds of times in the 9 days I was there.

I was in territory foreign to me and resolved to comply and be an easy patient. I was tired, and began drifting off to sleep, only to have the partition in front of me suddenly swiped across to reveal an elderly gent with a beard and a hospital gown looking at me quizzically. He stood still for a few seconds then said, "Sorry, I thought it was my bed", and he slid the curtain closed. I the heard someone I assumed was a nurse directing him to his bed. A little later I heard him calling out he was lost and didn't know where he was. There didn't seem to be nurses around, so I thought I'd better get up and help him. It took a little time for me to unplug my jack connection from the union to the ECG and when I did and opened the curtain I had a huge surprise. There in front of me was a young lady in short pyjamas telling the old guy where his bed was and speaking in the gentlest tone. She turned to see me and smiled a sweet smile but quickly focused back on the old guy. She was very beautiful. I had to pinch myself that I wasn't dreaming. I kid you not, I thought what on earth is a beautiful young lady like that doing in a stroke ward with old men. She seemed like an angel. I slept or at least dozed then till the next round of checking by nurses, which was never far away. Then it was breakfast, brought on a tray and placed on the wheeled table next to the bed. I was hungry not having had dinner the previous evening. That was my introduction to hospital food that I was to have as my sustenance for the next week. I'm not complaining about it, but it really doesn't warrant me spending time describing it.  

So now Sunday proper 20 Jan, is underway. Nurses kept coming in testing, monitoring the machine. A doctor came in and introduced himself. He told me I'd be having an MRI, but it wouldn't be till Monday, they weren't doing them Sunday. I didn't see him again, after that it was the vascular team who talked to me about what was happening. I had visits from an occupational therapist, and a physiotherapist, talking exercises and recovery. Through all this I felt fine, fully ambulatory and able to go to the toilet and shower myself. My hand movement felt almost back to normal, I was still a bit wobbly in the left wrist and elbow.  All the medical staff that talked to me emphasized that the first couple of weeks after a stroke was the critical time when a second stroke would likely come if it was going to, that's why I was being monitored so closely. Who was I to disagree? But I did feel a bit like a guinea pig in a testing laboratory.

That Sunday morning a doctor and others, maybe assistants or students, came and were talking to the young lady in cubicle 3 whom I'd met during the night. Wondering why she was in there I couldn't help but try and tune in to the conversation. I heard mention, I think, of steroid injections, family, fatigue. Great warmth in the voices. I heard sobbing. I heard laughter. It's hard not to be an eavesdropper in a public hospital ward. The medical team left and not long after the lady had a group of visitors and left with whom I assumed was her husband/partner. They walked slowly past my bed, he with his hand at her elbow and she seemed to shuffle a little. That was my first hint of what her ailment was, but I didn't know. She came back a few hours later with family, who stayed a while then left. Before long she was across from me talking to the old guy who'd had the orientation troubles during the night. She spoke so gently, referred to him by name, William. He spoke of his carer coming but hadn't yet. His carer was his son-in-law. She knew his birthday was in May, she said, she'd heard him answer the nurses' questions. Hers was in May too. He'd be turning 97. She was so kind and gentle with him. As she left him, she turned, our eyes met, and she smiled a wonderful smile and came over to me. "Hello, I'm Sarah. How are you feeling today? She walked slowly.

"I'm fine, thanks. I'm Carey. Nice to meet you. I have to say how good it was, the lovely way you talked to William helping him last night, and today." 

"I'm glad you're feeling OK, it's hard to sleep in here, there's so much coming and going. I thought saying hello and welcome may help you settle. It can be daunting when there's something wrong, but you don't know the extent, and you come into the hospital environment." This lady was right on every count, with everything she said.

She continued, "When I came in the other day, after the doctors had told me the MS diagnosis and left, a lady in bed 2 came over to me, and said she'd overheard. She said it was almost word for word what she heard ten years ago, when she had the same diagnosis. She said she's in here now because of a minor relapse, but the ten years have been good so don't be too down about it. It gave me great heart to have her encouragement. She gave me her phone number and we have contact." 

I thanked her for her concern and well wishes. I was moved to think this lovely lady has multiple sclerosis. I half heard her in a number of phone conversations with friends and colleagues. I could tell she had a senior position somewhere and was talking of reports and meetings. With everyone she spoke to she had the same warm, caring tone.

I was told the MRI would happen Monday, and depending on what it showed, I may need surgery. The day passed with a couple of meals, some reading, some television. That night, or more precisely early Monday morning, the calm was shattered by a new patient arriving. Apart from the nurses coming by every hour or so to wake you for BP and the other tests it was quiet until a commotion cranked up out in the corridor as they were bringing in a newbie. It was an old man's voice at full volume, "Get you fkg hands off me, don't touch me." Repeatedly, as staff tried to calm him. "Get off me." Eventually they got him into the cubicle next to me, and the drama continued. I think they injected him with something to calm and restrain him. Quiet came, but a security guard sat outside his cubicle for the rest of the night and all Monday until he was moved on somewhere. From what I could gather he had a urinary infection making him go nuts. In the calm after the storm, I wrote a note to Sarah thanking her for her kindness and included my email address and I said that I would write up my hospital experience on my blog when I got home and felt I could do it. I took it to her in the morning, first clearing it with the security man who was sitting back to the wall with Sarah's and the nutter's cubicle either side of him. I just handed it to a smiling Sarah and retreated without saying anything.

A doctor team saw Sarah in the morning again and she went out with family. I was taken to have the MRI and came back to see Sarah back with a big family group with her. There was a note from Sarah on my little wheeled table with my books. The note wished me well and said how meaningful my note was to her and she would keep it forever as a memento of her time in Flinders. It included her email address. She was obviously leaving. She talked to William and gave him a kiss, and introduced her son Leo, a small boy, to him. As she did this, she hugged and kissed Leo. Her family had gone out and before she left, she came to me, thanking me again and wishing me well. So nice. I refrained from hugging her and kissing her, but I wish I hadn't. Who but Carey could have a stroke and go to hospital and fall in love in three days? But the best kind of love. Love with no expectation or desire. Seldom if ever, I have I met anyone so fleetingly that has impacted me so strongly.

The vascular team came in and showed me pictures of brain from the MRI. There were three small spots of brain damage which had caused my arm and hand difficulty and the temporary loss of vision. I was then scheduled for an ultrasound on my carotid arteries for Tuesday, to establish the extent of the blockage in the right one and check the left. Later on Monday I went the toilet when the coast was clear, there being one bathroom for 4 patients. It was not a large room, somewhat cluttered with a frame over the toilet giving disabled people something to sit on, and a chair in the shower and another chair on wheels. I'd lifted the frame off the toilet when I used it previously but this time, seeing I had to sit, I didn't bother, thinking what's a few extra inches of drop.  Happily, I did what I had to do and went to pull my dacks up, tracksuit bottom, only to find them and my undies all wet with urine. What had happened was that because of the frame there were in fact two toilet seats a few inches apart. When I weed, it had gone between the seats because my willy must have been pointing not straight down which wouldn't matter if sitting on a normal seat, it would be inside the pan. So. I'd pissed in my pants which were round my ankles. Embarrassed, I had no clean clothes and had to ask a nurse for a plastic bag for my wet ones. She gave me a gown and some hospital underpants which were the nappy type. I felt a right goog. I rang Lib and asked her to bring me some clothes if her and Gord were visiting next day, which they'd indicated they were.

* That blow to my right upper jaw 52 years ago is very near the carotid artery. I'm wondering why my artery blocked. The medics keep talking about arteries like pipes and cholesterol build up, a bit of plaque breaking off and travelling to the brain and blocking flow. As a gardener I know if a hose is kinked it can develop a weakness. Same as a copper pipe under our house once that burst. It was explained to me that if kinked when installed, where it's kinked it becomes thinner there and wears through eventually with abrasion from the impurities in the water. I'm told cholesterol goes to repair an injury or some damage. Then can slowly build up too much. The surgeon said my surgery was complicated because there was cross over with my artery and other veins when there shouldn't have been. I asked him how this would have happened. He said he didn't know. I'm wondering could that severe blow to the side of my head stretched kinked or otherwise had something to do with this blockage. Maybe I think too much.