Happy New Year? WTF!

Saturday, January 1st

About 2:00am: I get home from being out on New Year's Eve and mom and dad are both still up working on a puzzle.

9:45am: I dash upstairs to put a french toast casserole in the oven for brunch. I'm running late, but mom and dad are both up, working on the puzzle. Mom says "you're up early!" and I say "no, brunch is supposed to be at 10:30 and this will take an hour to cook. Guess I can move it back to 11:30."

Mom starts cleaning up the kitchen and fights with dad about what parts of the puzzle he's working on that she set up. They give a big show for my friend Claire who spent the night. I warn dad "You're brave. She's doesn't care dad. She'll kick your butt whether Claire is here or not!"

11:30am: We have brunch with my friend Claire, our neighbors Ray & Carrie and my sister Ruth. Mom is fine participating in conversation and eating.

12:30pm: Mom and Ruth go to work on the puzzle. Dad goes outside to warm up my car so that I can give my friend a ride home. Ruth yells at me from the kitchen "Tommy, get in here." I ask "What?" She says, "Get in here now!" I go into the kitchen and she's holding mom up, standing by the kitchen sink. She yells "I think mom is having a stroke! Get dad!" Dad is coming in from warming up my car and runs up the stairs. Darren runs across the street to get Ray, our neighbor who is also a fireman. Dad and I walk mom into the living room and Ruth calls 911. Mom is grunting, and her face looks like it's about to burst. She's crying. She's mad that she can't speak to us, can't tell us what is wrong. She can't make the sound come out of her mouth, but you can tell she is yelling and pleading with us. And she's crying.

Ruth's story: Mom couldn't open her high blood pressure medicine bottle, so she asked my sister to help her. She said that mom put the pill in her mouth and when she went to take a drink, the water just fell down her face and she saw the right side of her mouth droop down. Everything was immediate.

12:45pm: The ambulance was there so quickly, Ruth was still on the phone with 911 trying to collect mom's current medications. They asked the questions you ask for a stroke "Can you smile?" "Can you lift your arms?" She couldn't do either.

1:30pm: When we got to the ER they gave her something that made her drowsy and was supposed to be affective if she was having seizures. I thought it was Ativan, but can't remember. At this point they had not diagnosed her and were looking at two possibilities. A CT scan had revealed a mass in her brain and another in her lungs.

1. Seizure: Possibility that the mass in her lungs had metastasized to her brain causing seizures.
2. Stroke: Possibility that mass in her brain is a blood clot causing a stroke. Mass in her lungs needs to be diagnosed.

Testing showed the second - it was a stroke. Later they label it "acute stroke" or "medium". A "medium" stroke has a posibility of recovery back to 90%. A massive stroke, no where near that.

~2:45pm: The standard and recommended treatment for a stroke occuring within 3 hours, is a blood thinner to help release the clot. It will not be given to a patient if there's a chance the stroke is over 3 hours. Having spent the last several hours with mom, we were confident that the symptoms of her stroke started no sooner than 12:30pm. She was given Tissue Plasminogen Activator (t-PA).

Bleeding is a major side effect of t-PA. The neurologist, Dr. Pratt told us that the first hour would be the most critical, and that normally bleeding in the brain would occur within the first four hours. She would, however, be closely monitored for signs of this complication especially within the first 24 hours.

She did great the first 3 hours. Every 15 minutes a verbal and motor skills test was given to her. She kept increasing point by point. Just into the 4th hour, we're told that mom is not responding as well to the exam. She's taken for a CT. Bleeding is found in her brain, small, but concerning. 1.3cm. It takes about an hour to check her bloodtype and have a drug given to her to reverse the t-PA affect which is thinning her blood. Doctor advises, that if the t-PA is going to work, the reverse drug will not affect it. The results from that will take longer to see though - up to three months. We don't have to wait that long to see if the reversal drug works. Another CT is given to mom at 10:30pm. We wait and wait for results. They tell us "No news is good news. The radiologist needs to distribute reports in order of urgency." We don't want our results to be urgent. But we do want results. The waiting sucks.

Sunday, January 2nd

4:45am: Results are in. There is no change in the size of the bleed. The doctor said he'd be happy with this. As long as the bleeding did not grow, he feels it'll be okay. The area of the bleeding is someplace that side effects would not be apparent.

On the plus side, mom had a positive reflex test and lifted her right arm.

12:30pm Mom has an MRI to determine the origination of the stroke and to see if she has had any previous smaller strokes, which they think is probable. The MRI should also show if there is anymore bleeding in her brain. She also had a CT scan dedicated to check on the mass in her lungs. We're told they won't be able to biopsy for a while since she had the dose of blood thinner. Risk of bleeding is too great.

She's also meeting with a speech therapist. The risk of pneumonia is also a big concern. The speech therapist will evaluate her capability to swallow and to protect her lungs from ingesting liquids.