My Stroke Story

My stroke was an intracerebral hemorrhage.  It happened during my wife's father's funeral.  October 11, 2011 was a beautiful fall day.  My wife's father had died two days earlier after a long and full life.  He had been a teacher, principal, and coach, and had influenced a generation of young people in the region of Kentucky where my wife grew up, so there was a large crowd gathered to say goodbye to him.  I felt fine that day, there was no hint of what was to come.  My wife and our two teenage children got up early and I drove everyone to the funeral home.  We spent most of the morning there greeting visitors, then drove in the funeral procession to the church for a final service.  My mother-in-law joined us, and again, I drove.  We were positioned in the procession right behind the hearse.  I experienced no symptoms during the short drive to the church, but at some point during that time, the bleed began.  The hearse stopped at the church and I stopped behind it.  The funeral home staff came to the back of the hearse, got the casket out, and began to take it inside.  My family got out of the car and waited for me to get out and join them.  Except that when I opened the door and tried to stand up, I couldn't.  My legs wouldn't work, and I would have fallen on my knees if I hadn't been able to support myself by leaning on the car. 

I managed to make it to the rear of the vehicle, and by this time my family saw that something was wrong with me.  I didn'know what was happening, but having a stroke didn't occur to me.  It felt like my legs had fallen asleep, so I told the others to go on inside, and I managed to get the rear door open and sat down in the back seat.  My wife came to check on me, but I told her my legs had fallen asleep and for her to go inside and I would join her in a few minutes. She was skeptical, but I insisted, so she finally complied, but asked her nephew to stay with me.

While I was sitting there, trying to figure out what the deal was, my sister-in-law, trying to be helpful, offered me an aspirin. I refused it without really knowing why. I sat there for a few more minutes, but my legs were showing no signs of being able to support me.  So even though I still felt no other symptoms, I told my wife's nephew to go in the church and get her.  She came out, looked at me, and said, "You're having a stroke, you need to get to othe emergency room now."

I told her I wasn't having a stroke, but that I would go to the hospital after the funeral and burial were over.   But she wasn't having it, and insisted that she was going to call an ambulance.  Seeing that she was adamant, I relented, requesting only that she ask that it turn off its siren and lights when it got close.  She asked the policeman who was there to direct traffic to make the call, which he did.

So, as her father was being brought out from the church for the trip to the cemetery, an ambulance arrived to take her husband to the emergency room.  My poor wife had a decision to make, and she went to the emergency room with me. 

Luckily again, we were only a few miles from a town with a hospital that serves as a regional medical center for this part of the state, so they knew exactly what to do.  They did a CT scan which showed I was having a hemorrhagic stroke which the doctor said was about the size of a cottonball, they stabilized my blood pressure which was through the roof, and sent me by helicopter to the university stroke center in Louisville.

As I've said before, I'm one of the luckiest stroke survivors around.  At every turn I had friends, family, and medical personnel who did exactly the right thing (except for my sister-in law, who meant well, but the emergency room doctor said it was a darn good thing I refused that aspirin), especially my wife, who took control of me then, and for the next several weeks.  I was lucky I didn't wreck the car and injure my family or anyone else, in fact I never really lost consciousness, and wasn't very worried about anything, although my wife sure was.  It wasn't until much later that I learned that the kind of stroke I had has a mortality rate that approaches 30% and only 20% of survivors are able to achieve what's called functional independence.  Luckily, I was one of the 20%, not the 30%.  Lucky, lucky, lucky.