Subtitle: Really, you wanted a ride in a helicopter that bad?!
How We Got Here
As I write this in late March, 2019, it is just shy of 7 months post-stroke. Before the stroke, my wife Rebecca was healthy and showed no warning signs. To this day, we still do not fully know why, but on Sep 4, 2018 at about 5:15pm, my 44 year-old wife had a sudden ischemic stroke.
Ischemic stroke occurs when a vessel supplying blood to the brain is obstructed. It accounts for about 87 percent of all strokes.
American Stroke Association
Fortunately, her symptoms were unambiguous, I was with her, and I called 911 within minutes (after a minute of two of hoping this would be a passing issue).
After working with Heather from Douglas County, CO 911 Dispatch for several minutes to evaluate my wife over the phone, the Castle Rock Fire and Rescue personnel began arriving to assess her.
Minutes later she was arriving at Centura Health’s Castle Rock Adventist Hospital (a 5 minute drive from our house, possibly less for me that evening), and a local record for the newly formed stroke center was broken: 16 minutes door-to-needle! In those 16 minutes, she had several CT scans to confirm the symptoms we were seeing, and the ER staff was able to administer the clot-busting Tissue Plasminogen Activator (tPA). In all, from the first symptom, it took everyone approximately 47 minutes to get my bride the life-saving treatment!
Just after her first CT scan and administering the tPA, her attending ER doctor, Gary Witt, MD. visited with me and confirmed My Wife Had A Stroke. This was the news I suspected from the first moments, but found impossible to accept at her 44 years of age.
After a time to stabilize her and to evaluate the next steps in her treatment, my wife was air-lifted to Centura’s Littleton Adventist Hospital. There, she was set to have an up-close inspection of the clot in a branch of her right carotid artery, by neurologist Christopher Nichols, MD, specializing in interventional radiology.
While waiting for her to lift off, we bumped into Dr. Witt again. By then Rebecca was talking well, and her left-side neglect had mostly lifted and she was regaining her use of her left arm again. I told her doctor I thought her recovery seemed very good, and asked him if he would agree. That was the first moment I felt relief, as I could see that he was happy with her recovery, but his words were rather intentional, warning me of possible complications to come and advising me to be cautiously optimistic.
Rebecca leaving Castle Rock Adventist Hospital via Flight for Life airlift, to Littleton Adventist Hospital for interventional radiology.
Dr. Nichols called me on my way to Littleton, and noted that on arrival, he saw Rebecca had improved dramatically compared to the reports from the Castle Rock ER. When I arrived at Littleton Hospital, Dr. Nichols met with me and told me the clot had already mostly dissolved, as he saw during Rebecca’s interventional radiology procedure.
Fast forward two days of tests, recovery, and more tests while in the ICU unit, we brought Rebecca home to start a recovery, with a list of new prescriptions to fill. Now the humbling adventure of recovery, learning, re-learning, re-discovering, and guarding had begun.
We thank the medical personnel who treated Rebecca so professionally, and so many of our friends and family who really stepped up for us in this dire time. It helped us so much to have their support in the weeks following the stroke.
ALEX & REBECCA LARSON
Where We’re Headed
We were warned by nurses and doctors in the ICU that recovery from a stroke is not typically quick — despite how rapidly Rebecca shed her noticeable deficits (droopy face, full neglect of her left side, etc.). Sure enough, when we got home, we soon realized the fatigue Rebecca’s body was facing. Our perspective had changed – life is suddenly more precious, more fragile. We knew how differently Rebecca’s future could have been, if any number of things went differently.
When we got home, I frankly remember not knowing what to do next for Rebecca, and craving more information about what to do to help. This was the engineer in me, seeking to fully define the problems and start to solve them. My mind was spinning, but Rebecca’s was slower now and needed rest desperately.
I understood the value of Rebecca’s sleep during these days. These were not merely chances to escape the day and get some rest, but rather these were times of active healing of her brain, which had suffocated for those 47 minutes and beyond. During Rebecca’s early recovery with 2 daily naps, I spent most of my time spotting problems and ‘engineering’ cost-effective solutions. I started many projects which I’ll describe in later posts, such as:
- Sound dampening our bedroom
- Light-proofing the bedroom
- Adding dimming lights to the house
- Setting up a support system
We also started to attend two amazing stroke survivor support groups. Meeting other survivors was unspeakably helpful. We met so many others who were struggling through their recovery, and were able to give us advice and point us toward more information. We are eternally grateful for all of their support as well.
After several months, Rebecca and I were invited to speak to the Hospital patient experience meeting to describe our story. And because the hospital had invited all first responders involved in her care that day in September, many were able to attend. As a result, we were also asked to speak to the 911 dispatchers who were able to hear our story.
The sum of these experiences led me to this project, MyWifeHadAStroke.com. I have seen others who have struggled to even start their healing. I want them all to know the general steps to recovery. I realize Rebecca’s deficits are not nearly as sever as many’s are, but her absolute best and fullest recovery possible is no less important to me. I want to share our lessons learned for others. I see this site being a resource more for caregivers and family to refer to, in order to also help their loved ones who can now suddenly identify as a stroke survivor.
My hope is to help identify how important therapy is to a survivor’s recovery, including sleep, environment, and perhaps most importantly, starting therapy right away. Rebecca’s deficits are there, but what is invaluable is her ability to communicate to me what is bothering or interfering with her recovery.
I know that many stroke survivors cannot communicate with their care givers and loved ones, so I plan to share what i’ve learned from Rebecca. I’ve learned that the variety of stroke deficits and challenges the survivors face, are about as varied as the human brain is complex. As such, I hope to interview other survivors and share their stories and struggles. I would like to suggest solutions to ease some of the daily struggles. If nothing else, this site will serve as an outlet for me to de-compress.
Our Vision For MyWifeHadAStroke.com
As a spoiler alert, you’ll notice that I have already posted a list of Resources, but with very little context or explanation. I will post articles to get into the details of each suggested resource, and explain the “Why” behind them. Some may be obvious, and some may not be necessary for all.
Eventually, I plan to search for people that know more about this topic than I do and request interviews, including survivors, other care givers, therapists, nurses, doctors, radiologists, etc. My focus will be in the Denver metro area, but I do hope to grow this site more. If you would like to offer your time to help, please watch for future posts for calls to action, or email me by clicking below, in the meantime.
As a caregiver, I don’t have the personal perspective of the survivor. This site is mostly written to the caregivers who want to help their loved ones, by offering a bit of foresight.