They placed a couple of blankets over me and loaded me back in an ambulance.
I fell asleep for a while, it was a restless sleep, I felt like I needed to move and readjust. I kept waking up off and on when we’d go over bumps in the road. I just couldn’t get comfortable. When we arrived at the second hospital, the paramedics handed over to nurses . Again, I watched as the ceiling lights flashed by above me as I was wheeled down several corridors, then rode an elevator, and through more corridors until we came to a stop. They handed me off to three more nurses.
I fell asleep again, I’m not sure for how long. They were hooking me up to different monitors. Again more questions. One started telling me that they were taking me for an additional CAT scan. And away I went.
When they wheeled me in my bed, back to my room, Dave was there. I remember him saying something about having called my mom and dad, and that my mom was flying in. My dad and brother were taking care of their dogs and driving the 9 hours to be with me. I fell back to sleep.
Every few minutes, a nurse would come in and wake me up. Shine light in my eyes and ask me if I knew what the date was. I could barely speak. The right side of my tongue, lips and cheek felt beyond numb. It’s hard to describe but, you know when you have novocaine and accidentally bite the inside of your cheek or tongue? Well, take away the ability to move your tongue or cheek at all. I wanted to speak, but no amount of effort to think about it would make the right side of my mouth work right. It was like a power outage only, I had the sensation of touch. I could feel my tongue lying in my mouth, the right side of it resting against my teeth and when I tried to speak or swallow, the left side of my tongue felt like it was trying to drag along dead weight. Then I fell asleep again.
When they woke me up again it was to meet the neurologist and his team of students. The doctor introduced himself and checked my reflexes on my left side and smiled almost sadly at the absence of response on my right side. He told me that I had a left brain stroke which was effecting the right side of my body. He asked Dave where my family was and the doctor said he would be back later in the day to tell us and my family more details of what happened and his prognosis for my recovery. I fell asleep.
