The Stroke
The past 12 months have completely changed my life. I’ve thought often that I should document what I’ve gone through, in the hopes that even some small part of it would help someone else going through a similar circumstance.
It’s not news-worthy - it’s just the daily joys and struggles of taking care of an elderly parent after a stroke.
Maybe just one person won’t feel like they’re alone.
Aug 20 - 06 I had just returned from a 4 day visit to California to visit my son and his family in San Jose, Ca. Daddy has been a little mixed up in the past 3 or 4 years, but after all - he was born in 1920 - and his brain is getting tired! This day was different though.
“Nan, I can’t start my truck.” He said.
I was a little impatient and thought, “Well, what now - I have so much to do, now I have to be a mechanic!” But I only said “Well, just a second, let’s go see what’s wrong.” To pay the devil his due, I did give one of those big woeisme sighs.
We walked down to the truck. The left turn signal was blinking and the windshield wipers were on. Dad handed me the keys, which I put in the ignition, and the truck started right up. I turned off the wipers & signal, and turned to Daddy. “What happened when you tried to start it?”
“I couldn’t find where to put the key.”
I thought it was more than a little strange, and turned the motor off and took the key. He grabbed it from me, and got in the truck, and told me he was going home. I argued and pleaded with him, but it didn’t do me any good. So I ran in the house, put the dog in his kennel, and got my keys to follow him. I wasn’t sure how much good that would do, but I knew something was wrong, and I had to be close to him.
He drove the 35 miles home without incident (of course he only drives about 45 mph). During the trip I called my mother and told her what happened and had her on alert. When we go to their house, Daddy went in and changed out of his bibs, and I called the doctor’s office. They told me to get him to the emergency room right away.
I thought I was probably in for a big fight on that front with Daddy. See, He was 86 years old, hadn’t been to the doctor in probably 20 years, didn’t take ANY medication aside from a baby aspirin and vitamin, and had NEVER been in the hospital overnight. I mean the man was a regular at the Red Cross blood bank!
But he only said, “I think something is wrong, it probably wouldn’t hurt.”
Whoa - for him to admit that something might be wrong is a big deal. Now I was really worried.
The hospital in their hometown is small, but they have great people working there. They took him in and did a brain scan, made him lay down and kept checking his vitals. You could see him getting more and more confused as he lay there. The preacher came to be him, and they prayed while we waited what the doctor had to say. It wasn’t good news. He told us that Dad had a place where he had bled into his brain. It was short circuiting pathways in his brain.
He recommended we get him to a larger hospital and a neurologist so that the bleeding could be contained, stopped, or relieved.
They put him in a ambulance and took him to the ‘big city’ hospital.
Mom and I followed, making phone calls to rearrange the day and inform family, while we were enroute.
The big city hospital was a nightmare. Dad had needles in him that he kept trying to pull out - Nurses were in and out poking things in him and asking questions he couldn’t answer.
After 86 years of not even HAVING a doctor, He now had a neurologist, a heart doctor, and a general hospital doctor.
The neurologist told us that he had had a hemoraghic stroke - contained to his brain, and that eventually, his body would absorb the blood that was in there. There were be lasting damage, but in 6 months we’d know what his condition was.
My brother and his wife came down and stayed with dad, Mom stayed with him overnight, Brother stayed overnight. I went home each night and up early and drove the 90 minutes to the hospital each day. They put him in intensive care because his heart rate was so low (in the 40’s). They did a electrocardiogram on him and found he had a leaky valve - there was talk of a pacemaker - but with no history to document the leak - it was decided to take a wait and see attitude - He could have had it his whole life.
I was on autopilot at this point. It was so hard to see my Daddy without control of himself. He had always been a strong opinionated, FUNNY guy. He never complained (except about the government and the cats). He still wasn’t complaining although he had many reasons to. All I wanted to do was help him. I wanted to make it all better. I didn’t want him to be embarrassed. He never showed weakness, and now he was at the most vulnerable he’d ever been.
After 5 days in the hospital it was time for us to make a decision. He had been taking physical therapy and speech therapy while there in the hospital, and it was suggested that with good therapy, we could get him back to a state where he would be able to be nearly normal again. Luckily, the rehab/nursing home just 3 blocks from my home could offer this therapy. They put him in an ambulance and Mom and I followed it to what we carefully called ‘the rehab place’….meticulously refusing to call it a ‘nursing home’… although once we were in there, it was abundantly clear that that was EXACTLY what it was.
They had Dad in a really nice private room. He had a dining room table and chairs, refrigerator, microwave, tv, bed, and lounge chair. It was decorated like a room at home. Of course it didn’t smell like home - but it was nice. We were greeted by the staff and had to go through stacks of paperwork. I was so emotional that I was fighting tears throughout it. Mom was depending on me (she’s hard of hearing) - and I was doing my best to answer the questions and make the decisions. The last bit of paperwork was, I don’t remember the OFFICIAL name of it - only the gist, the resuscitate papers. I had to leave the room - I just lost it. Dad didn’t know what was going on, and I couldn’t stand to talk about this in front of him. I absolutely was not ready to talk about the end of his life. The staff was understanding, and said we could make decisions on that later if we wanted to. Thank god. I couldn’t even look at Dad without crying at that point in time, and I knew that wasn’t good for him. At least I thought it wasn’t. He was pretty confused at this point in time, and didn’t know where he was, or what was going on. He was evaluated by nurses, therapists, and a plan of action was decided on by the ‘rehab place’.
My Mother moved in with me to be close to the ‘rehab place’ - and we began what our life would be for the next 2 months. We decided on shifts to stay with him. Mom taking first shift and me second. He wouldn’t eat unless one of us was there, and I couldn’t stand to leave him alone in that place with all those OLD people. Irrational, I know, but I just couldn’t see him as one of them.