It is strange one day can change the course of your life forever. It was Columbus Day. I was home from work. I was eating a bowl of cereal and sitting in my bed watching TV.
My dad (Jerry Sr) walks into my room and asked if I saw anything wrong with his face. I looked for a few moments and all I saw was he looked really tired. Then he pointed to a part of his face and I saw that it was in fact dropping slightly. I went into panic and fear mode.
I asked him if he wanted me to take him to the hospital or call 911. He said something that made me laugh. He said “you can finish your breakfast first”. Yeah I did not do that. I instantly got up, got dressed and we left for the hospital.
As we walked out to my car he was having a hard time walking. We got to the nearest hospital. A hospital that is not highly rated and liked due to lack of patient care and concern, but it is the closest to my house.
We pull into the parking lot. I parked by the ER entrance for the ambulances since the other parking lot is across the street. I held him up as we walked towards the ER entrance, which was still on the other side of the building from where I parked. We made it as far as the ambulance entrance. He slumped again the wall.
So I started punching the button at the door and banging on the door. So picture it. I am standing at an ER entrance with a man slumped again the wall and the nurse took her sweet time to come to the door. Once I explained to her why I was at that door instead of the main entrance by simply saying, “I think he had a stroke.” She then gets upset with me and said that strokes are worse than heart attacks and I should have called an ambulance.
But at that point they finally kicked into a little faster mode. He was in a wheelchair and put into a room. Then they take blood and hook him up to monitors and schedule tests. It was not long before they told us what we already knew, he had a stroke. They ran a bunch more tests and discovered by had a blood clot in his lungs, heart & in his legs.
After much discussion with my dads doctor the hospital finally sent him to the IHC in Murray. When we arrived at that facility he was treated to more tests and it was discovered his blood clot in his hart was playing ping pong and going from chamber to chamber. He was taken to surgery where they put in a filter thing to stop the blood clot from going back and forth.
His stroke was fairly mild and not a lot of damage. He had some issues with his eyes and was on oxygen for a few months. Things got back to normal.
Until it got worse…
Behind The Brown Door 