Brain Attack

Suddenly on the floor with half of my body not following orders, a black hole in the physical domain lured me into surrender. Nothing, no matter how important, mattered to me any longer. My favorite fantasies stirred not the least of interest. "You have three hours," I heard my wife say. But time had stopped and I felt no urgency.

Did I still belong here? Without physical fullness, my apparent absence from the material world seemed more natural. I contemplated what kept me here and if it still mattered. Was I ready to graduate from the school of physical life? I certainly had learned a lot but perhaps more lessons awaited me now.

Then I heard my wife pleading with me to hang in there, that she needed me. She made some phone calls, hauled a mattress down the stairs for me to lie on and stuck a phone to my ear. It was my youngest daughter calmly telling me that I had to go to a hospital and get all the typical treatment including an IV an MRI exam, a brain scan, etc.

For years I had been suspicious of the American "pay or die" health care system (Ralph Nader talk), including the monopoly of the pharma industry and its friends at the FTC and FDA. I visualized the huge hospital bills with countless obscure line items, the doctors' bills equally intimidating and threatening to suck the life savings out of my 401K.

My second daughter suddenly appeared. With my wife's help she somehow got me into her car and high tailed it down to the hospital recommended by our youngest who was already en route there to alert the ER staff. Once we arrived, the emergency crew went to work on me as efficiently and expertly as imaginable. It did not occur to me then how much effort and sacrifice my daughters brought to my survival. It was simply super!

After getting over my need to hurl, I received a brain scan followed by an MRI. An ER doctor talked to me in a loud voice. He said that I failed to satisfy the 3-hour window for the paralysis prevention blood clot buster shot. But he thought perhaps it was a blessing in disguise as he recently had a patient who had a severe reaction to that shot. Fortunately, he did not have bad news for me. No aneurism, but an ischemic brain attack for which I promptly received a shot of blood thinner. That, of course did not awaken my left side but perhaps kept me from having another attack.

Reportedly over 700,000 Americans suffer a stroke each year, and more than 150,000 die thereof, making strokes the number 3 killer in the U.S. Most strokes are caused by a blood clot blocking an artery supplying blood to the brain.

Barely out of ER treatment at the hospital, a guy showed up with a portable PC to make sure I was insured and not a welfare case. Once in my hospital room and bed, a neurologist walzed in and declared loudly: "You had a brain attack. That's worse than a heart attack! The next 72 hours are crucial!" Then he came across like a pharma salesman telling me about my new medication and that I would have to take it for the rest of my life. When I speculated on the thousands of dollars of cost for the hospital and treatment he came back with the classical doctor power play: "How much is your life worth?" In other words, you don't have a choice. I knew he was right. After all, the 'medical industrial complex' had me in its jaws.

I had arrived where I never wanted to be in life, trapped in a helpless state, unable to walk away, lying in a hard bed with countless sensors monitored by some nurse practitioner, uninvited medicall personnel walking in and out, searching my room (maybe looking for alcohol or drugs), checking my blood pressure, changing IVs, drawing blood, inspecting my body, giving me shots and pills, adjusting the bed, and dutifully asking if I had pain. I felt like a slave.

When I had to go to the bathroom, I needed to push the "help" button. One time I hit the button and this very young, beautiful patient care tech girl came a-smiling to assist me. Her name was Jessica. She helped me wheel chair to the bathroom and watched over me barely positioning my body in front of the raised toilet seat, supporting myself with my functional right arm, I said: "Jessica, you got to pull my pants down." It was the ultimate moment of truth. For the first time in my life I had to ask anyone to pull my pants down, let alone a beautiful young lady like Jessica. She did not hesitate, and obliged.

At that point I realized the presence of humor and mental diversion which sprang up in my still functional brain. What a marvelous escape from the reality of my hospital enslavement. I started chatting a lot, especially with care givers. Later I heard that my file described me as "hyper-verbal," a small price to pay for letting my thoughts run. As a child I had learned a song: Thoughts are free. How true!

As an inpatient receiving rigorous therapy I soon discovered that adaptation was the key to my survival. I learned this primarily from a very nice black nurse called Francis. And it was a black doctor who brought me a brochure about strokes, the causes, the recurrence rates, and the preventative measures. Oh wow, a doctor advocating prevention? Moreover, he listened to me and let me tell him of important experiences in my medical history. I had tried to tell this to an Asian American doctor in ER, but this guy had a narrow disciplined reasoning process which dismissed any extraneous patient input. He was well schooled, focused, and rational, yet consumed by his acquired learning, spitting out relevant facts as if he was in the middle of a verbal exam. He reminded me of the Dr. House TV Show.

I wore a message shirt showing American Indian warriors on a hill. It said: Homeland Security, fighting terrorism since 1492. My doctor of native American descent loved it. Unfortunately the financial terror of medical care still threatens our homeland security and his bill later was a shock to me. He charged me $123 for walking into my room, smiling, taking my blood pressure, asking me how I felt and making some notes. Had I known it then, I would have shortened my 3-week stay. Of course, the neurologist's rationale was: Until you can get out of your house, when on fire, by yourself, you must stay here. He knew the imperatives and pulled his trump card for ultimate authority.

The therapists were amazingly caring. Denise and Christen, my speech therapists, worked creatively on my short term memory and kept surprising me with inventive mental exercises. Seth, the occupational therapist challenged me with rigorous upper body exercises. Becky and Jennifer, the physical therapists, taught me to walk again, crawl on my elbows and knees, and to stand while working my arms. Then there was Ben, their superior, who put me on an expensive Israeli joystick machine. I loved it, but parts of me were still dead. My left foot would not obey me at all. Every time I was praised for making progress, a little devil on my left shoulder would scoff and heckle, challenging me to wiggle my left toe, if I could. Not even a millimeter could I move it. One therapist said that I might be able to move that foot in two years, or perhaps never. Well, that's all it took to rattle me out of my misery.

I was wheeling myself down the hospital hallway when a stranger grabbed my wheel chair handles and pushed me along. He said: "Not too long ago I was in that chair like you, but look at me now." He walked away as quickly as he had appeared, as if in Ghost Whisperors. Well, as long as I was on this side of the tracks, I needed to regain my physical strength and full control of my limbs. And there were tools to help me do that. Most patients at the hospital used walkers (I called them "walk-hers"). They let me walk with a quad cane ("walk-him") and I did ok with it when focusing on my therapist's do and don'ts.

Of course there were too many distractions which caused me to lose concentration. There was Jessica (Jessi-CA) the California type sunshine girl, and Alison (all-is-on), and Courtney (should have been a model), and nurse Jeanne (listened to me philosophize at midnight, and gave me a wonderful book to read), and Betty (brightened the corner where she was), and Tracy (don't ring when she is on duty, but I loved her still), and Barbara (always freezing), Sheila (with hair so red it was nearly purple), and, above all, Peter, who is such a neat gentleman, they call him "Saint" Peter.

Once home, I decided to trim down to 150 lbs. No, I did not wish or hope or like to do it, I decided! Dropping weight hurts! It is not comfortable, it can be very painful, and will test your character. I'm down to 155 now, only 5 lbs to go, but dead serious about getting to 150 and staying there. The less I eat, the healthier I get. No sugar, low fat, low sodium, no processed food. No meal or snacks after 06:00 p.m. Two hours on the stationary computerized bike daily keeps my cardiovascular system in shape. Oh joy, I can even wiggle my left toe now.

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