Thursday Night me and my wonderful wife had just finished watching Orange is the New Black's final episode of the season. We were just winding down for a few minutes and playing a game or two before going to bed.
It was at this point that I had thought my life had changed forever with a tragedy. I look back and she is leaning on her chair towards me talking some garble and incoherent language. Sitting at my computer I instantly knew things were not OK, so I threw off my headphones and glasses and started to walk towards her to check on her.
It took about 3 seconds to realize something was not right, her face was drooping, her motor skills were greatly diminished and she was slurring anything and everything she said very badly. I'm thinking she was having a stroke, my first phone call was to her Sister Chris who was teaching Vacation Bible School at her Church on the Mileground but there was no answer. Her phone was somewhere else and turned down because she was teaching. At that moment she felt a panic that she needed to check her phone and returned my phone call without listening to the voice mail I sent her inquiring what I needed.
I told her I thought Michelle was having a stroke and knowing a stroke victim has a small window to overturn any effects of a stroke she immediately instructed me to call an ambulance, so I immediately hung up with her and called 911.
From the time I had first called Chris until BOTH Jim and Chris AND the Ambulance arrived from the Mileground was literally about 4 minutes. They pulled in First as Jim is a Former EMT here in Morgantown and probably would have won any race against the best NASCAR driver to get here ahead of them, I'm still in amazement of how quick both Jim and Chris as well as the Ambulance got here.
We loaded her up on the gurney and took her to the Emergency Room, thinking we only had a 60 minute window to administer the medications necessary to offset a strokes affects. Being she was coming in by ambulance and it was a Trauma, we got priority like and was seen by a team of experts in a matter of a few minutes.
Within that first 60 minutes, the Ambulance arrived, she was transported, seen, giving a CT Scan and EKG and an assessment by the Neurologist in about a total of 45 minutes.
In the Emergency Room her speech returned slightly, she was coherently having conversations with everyone and appeared to be snapping out of it, but still with greatly diminished motor skills and speech.
After a few hours there they decided to admit her and administer an MRI, I run home home to get things she asked me to get and Chris, Jim, Amanda, Chad, Laiah, Hayley and Josh all waiting with her to go upstairs.
Before I left, Jim walked in and asked if he could pray for her, well the obvious answer was yes and he did so.
I run home and grab a few things and returned her Dad's text message with a Phone call. I told him she has made a tremendous comeback from earlier in the night, but exhaustion made her appear that she was she was dropping back into it.
I gather her stuff, run back to the hospital as she is now in a room and I go up to her room and get the absolute joyous surprise of my life as she had appeared to completely slip out of it. Her speech was back to 100% and no slurring, her greatly diminished motor skills had returned and she had no idea where she was or how she got there. I walk into the room and I saw a puzzled look on her face as if she did not know who I was, but fortunately that puzzled look was how did I get here and what happened.
Relieved on my part is an extreme understatement. We got her settled down and everyone left once they felt she was going to be OK which was around 1:00 AM or so. I think I left around 1:30 to return home and give her a small chance to rest as she was exhausted.
They got her up around 4:00 or so (same time I woke up after about 2 hours of sleep, but I rolled back over for another hour and a half) to give her her MRI.
I returned to the Hospital about 6:30 after talking to her and picking up some breakfast that she wanted.
When I walk into the room, she had little to no recollection of the night before. She does not remember talking to her Dad on the phone (after she went back to her room), but she remembers talking to my Brother on the Phone. She remembers Chad being there, but not Hayley. She remembers her niece (Dr) Amanda being there, but not Jim or Chris.
Obviously this scared her a little, she had lost a number of hours from her life and only slightly recalled it.
Her Sister Chris also joined me at the hospital and they administered and EEG about 9:30 or so. After that the Doctor came in and spoke with us, she scored a 0 on the Stroke test, the CT Scan and EKG looked fine, the MRI showed no problems and they were just waiting on the EEG results to make a final diagnosis.
Everything came back fine, they think it was something called
Transient Global Amnesia (TGA), but they could not rule out a
Transient Ischemic Attack (TIA) and determined she was at no health risk any longer and released her.
She has no trouble remembering anything from yesterday and we even went out to dinner yesterday evening and went to Sam's to do our grocery for the week before returning home. It was as if nothing happened, she just lost a few hours of her life that she can't remember anything from that particular time frame. I am thankful to say the absolute minimum and would like to thank everyone who was asking about her and concerned for her, the list would be too numerous to name, just know we are thankful for each and every one of you and the roles you played in conveying messages to others and taking that burden off of us so we could concentrate on her well being.
I can't express the comfort and relief in knowing my wife, my best friend and my soulmate is going to be OK.
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