A Single Stroke

 

  Thursday March 27, 2014:  I didn’t’ know then how much that evening would change my life…I’m still learning how significantly impacted it has become.  On that fateful evening I was out on a routine run after work, excited to be meeting a gal a loved dearly afterwards at my house for dinner and an evening relaxing.  I was weeks away from a departure date back to a land I love to teach and a people I adore.  Ladakh India had become a place I cherished and looked forward to returning to each and every year.  I was returning to teach again and to reconnect with past students.  I was fit…I was healthy…and reluctantly I had the support of a woman I loved deeply.  She “had a feeling” that had I went I wouldn’t’ return.  Even now I look at the outcome had this event happened high in the Himalaya.  As I ran that evening I remember feeling almost as if I was having an out of body experience.  My head wasn’t right, not hurting, but just swimming in feelings, thoughts, and in a realm I cannot (to this day) quite explain.  I finished my run short of my goal as this feeling progressed.   I was excited to get home and see my girl and those two things combined would likely be two (of several) factors that saved my life that night.  I began walking home when those cerebral anomalies expanded and I started to get dizzy and feel a sense of confusion.  I picked up the pace as I knew I was about a mile from home.  Suddenly my arms began to tingle and within minutes I lost dexterity in my hands.  Prior medical (EMT) training made me acutely aware that SOMETHING was definitely wrong.  I quickened my pace as I tried to fumble for my phone tucked away around my waist.  Suddenly my vision began to blur and in that moment I knew I was in trouble.  I sat on a guardrail as the sun set and knew if I could just get my phone out I could get a hold of someone to help me.   As I fumbled I finally retrieved my phone…only to realize my vision had almost completely gone in that moment.  It’s one of the most helpless moments I’ve ever felt and I can only hope I never feel that way again.  I didn’t have the mental capacity at that point to wave for help…to lie down….or to scream.  Nothing was making sense. 

  The symptoms would let up long enough for me to stumble (literally) home and by the time I got to the house I had collected myself enough to try and not scare my girlfriend or my daughter who were not at all aware of what was happening.  I typically walk in from a run and hop straight in the shower as it’s not only a necessity; I love the feeling of the hot water pouring over my open pores.  This time I lingered and decided I’d stay close to Amber “just in case” the darkness came back.  I was scared.  More than I had ever been my entire life.  No mountain, no fight, no epic had ever prepared me for a fear of facing my end in that very moment.  I knew at that point I was dealing with something neurological.    I tried frantically to convince myself that I was merely dehydrated from working out twice that day and then running after work.  I eased into the kitchen, gave her a kiss, and tried to nonchalantly help cut vegetables for dinner.  I remember telling myself to be calm.  She came into my life not too long before and I certainly didn’t want to place this burden on her.  We talked and within minutes I was frustrated as my mental state and ability to articulate diminished.  Suddenly I couldn’t say what was so obviously being processed through my brain.  The beast was back..and I had nowhere to run.  I recall putting both hands on the counter and putting my head down as I kept trying to repeat my sentence.  I could sense her being alarmed but I kept trying… “don’t quit”… “keep trying”… “don’t scare her”.  “Get my daughter out of here…she can’t see this”…suddenly Amber started to mumble.  “Oh sh&% she’s having a stroke”.  She wasn’t making sense.  Only recently would I learn that this was the stroke going “deeper” into another part of the brain that makes it hard for me to understand on top of my inability to speak.  “Get outside”…don’t let this happen in front of them”.  As the darkness faded again I was able to call friends (one a paramedic) and ask what to do, and to this day (actually as I’ve recently learned from a follow up appointment) the single act that quite possibly could have saved my life, and definitely prevented further damage, Amber had the wherewithal to give me Aspirin.

 

  We’d travel to Denver for further care after spending some time in the hospital here in Durango.  The ensuing months would prove frustrating for me in ways I’ve never talked about.  One surgeon downplayed the significance while another quickly set me straight.  I had a stroke.  A Trans Ischemic Attack (TIA)..a mini stroke.  As time has passed I’ve quietly dealt with the after effects and as I dive into the next round of visits with the neurologists I’m not quite certain I’ll ever be the same.  I have memory issues, I get confused easily, and at times I feel that otherworldly feeling like I’m here..yet not here.  Like something inside is stepping out for a walk on its own.  I’m just starting to learn the severity and lack of complete understanding that the medial world has on our brains.  It’s astounding how much we know, but more so how much we don’t know.  The aneurysm in my carotid artery is 6-7mm in diameter.  A #2 pencil is roughly 5-6mm in diameter.  What does that mean?  It’s BIG!  It’s partially calcified.  What does that mean?  My body essentially created a shield…a partial layer of armor around this time bomb protecting it from bursting..for now.  Once again..I was lucky.  Time has passed and I’ve tried to maintain some semblance of normalcy in my life and yet only I can see and feel what’s happened inside.  Thoughts aren’t processed quite the same.  I have a hard time expressing what in the past was so easy to say.  What I feel and think don’t always make it out with any semblance to what I intended.  I tire much more easily..and I forget things I wish I could hold onto. 

 

  That one evening changed so much in my life and this journey through the fog is far from over.  Recent follow ups have driven the point home of just how sever this really is.  The location of the aneurysm, my age, and the after affects of any procedure they will inevitably do are all factors that keep this process so frustrating.  I recently told a close friend that I’d rather not make it through another stroke should it happen again.  I struggle every day to open my eyes and accept the facts of what’s happened.  I’ve kept so much bottled up and hidden from the outside, trying desperately to get back to a “normal life”.  In reality it all changed in an instant.  Like the single stroke of a painters brush, my landscape was forever changed.  I’m grateful for each day in ways I never thought possible.  I appreciate the smallest things that seemed so trivial before.   Tucking my daughter in each night brings a tear to my eye (literally).  I pray for one more day EVERY DAY.  I’ve lost a relationship during this process with a woman who quite literally saved, if not my life, a piece of me that could have been lost in the fog, and I often wonder if she’ll ever grasp the importance of her being there.  That night has passed but the after effects are just beginning.  I struggle to live to the fullest and to conquer my fears and chase my dreams.  I am grateful for so much.  I was asked by a friend after sharing my story alongside a campfire last weekend “aren’t you afraid to die?”   The answer came so quickly it seems as if the fog had lifted for that single moment… “I’m not afraid to die..I’m afraid to NOT live.”  Our time here isn’t guaranteed.  Our relationships will end, our time will end, and our body will reach its end,  but it’s the moments in between that mean so much and push me to extend my own end.  No amount of fog can rob me of the memories that have made this life so worth the struggle.