Oh, No!

Record for August 12 # 5

 

Hello,

 

Leroy was sitting on the deck feeling useless as he could not help with much. I was standing in the back yard when Leroy said, “Get Paula.”

 

When I got to him, he said in his now normally soft voice, “I cannot see out of my right eye. Everything is completely black.”

 

Our downstairs friend said, “Stroke!”

 

I had been thinking the same thing. I said, “Sarah, help your dad out to the car and I will gather things such as keys.”

 

Sarah carefully helped Leroy get to the car and I frantically ran around trying to think of what I might need.

 

At the hospital, they were extremely busy. By this time Leroy’s vision had come back. We had to wait in line to go through the Covid temp check and questions. At that point I told the person, “I think it might be a stroke.”

 

She said, “I think so too, but at registration they will take care of it.”

 

We waited in line at registration, giving me time to look around. Almost every seat in the place was filled. When we go there, I thought the woman seemed so calm, but she almost immediately got on her call system and said, “Seventy-one year old male, possible stroke.”

 

Quickly a wheel chair arrived and they whisked Leroy off to a room. I was happy to be able to stay with him. He was seen very quickly by a physician who asked a number of questions. They did a CT scan, chest x-ray (or Leroy thought they did), and blood work and perhaps more things, but I stayed in the room while they took him here and there. The Dr. was interested in why Leroy had been there the week before. He asked, “You have had a bad headache for four months and no MRI? And not seen a neurologist?”

 

To the negative reply he said, “You will get an MRI today and the neurologist on call will see you after that.”

 

I felt so relieved.

 

This part of the hospital had just gotten power. I asked if I could charge our cell phones and the nurse said yes and told me to sign onto the WI-FI. We were there nine hours because it was quite a wait for the MRI, etc. But that gave me plenty of time to charge phones and speak with our children.

 

There was some mass or substance behind his eyes. The neurologist checked the pressure of his spinal cord fluid and did a spinal tap. He said, “You will need to get a biopsy of arteries on either side of your head for the final diagnosis, but I am fairly certain you have Giant Cell Arteritis. Before we left the ER they gave him a drip with something in it that completely took away the headache. They also have a paper prescription for steroids. It was on paper because as they said, “I have no idea what pharmacy is open. If you do not find one open, you can get it filled at the hospital.”

 

A weight was lifted from both of us.

 

I asked about the business in the ER. They said, “Heat exhaustion, difficulty breathing, spraining or pulling a muscle, falling, and chain saw accidents.”

 

We were fortunate to get a room as there were people all over in the halls.

 

Paula