Those were frightening words to begin with, and the fact that I was the one saying them is even more terrifying.
My life has been upside down and backward for well over a year, pre-pandemic. Work has been overwhelming, and I’ve been wholly unsupported by my boss. Before he was my boss, we got along okay, now, not so much.
There’s a lot on my plate: work, school, family, union business, and so much more. It’s a lot.
Monday, April 5, 2021, was the first day of my new onsite reporting schedule. I had just switched from a Thursday onsite presence to this new “agreed upon” schedule after filing a grievance against my boss for undermining my managerial authority over my own team. It took over a year for me to reach the breaking point where I felt it necessary to formally declare that he stepped over a line. The fact that he called me ‘incompetent, deceitful, and insubordinate’ only helped to harden my reasoning.
For the record, I’m none of those things.
I went to work on Monday and worked late. Really late. Like 7:30 late. I stopped for dinner on my way home and, for some odd reason, felt compelled to snap a picture of myself while I was waiting in the drive thru.
Anyone that knows me knows that I don’t like taking pictures of myself. I don’t like the way I look and avoid pictures at all costs. I was tired, irritated, and not feeling great. No makeup on and a seatbelt that kept slipping up my shirt just added to the frustration.
The next day, I was back to working from home. But I felt … off all day long. I thought maybe it had something to do with my recent dental appointment. My jaw was still hurting from the Novocain.
After attending an early afternoon meeting, I had planned to log off and take a nap. I didn’t but I wanted to. I worked lightly another couple of hours then shut down, which is when my son asked me to drive him to Fontana. I didn’t want to. I didn’t feel right.
Traffic was horrendous on the 10 East due to a massive construction project and two different car accidents. Over an hour into a 20-minute drive, something went horribly wrong.
The only way I can describe it was that a wash swept over me from the top of my head to the bottom of my foot. My entire right side went numb. I could hear my son panicking. Calling me: “Mom. Mom! Talk to me. Say something! Mom!”.
My arm was … stuck … in an odd posture and I was telling him I am talking to you. I kept saying, “I’m okay. My right side is fuzzy, but I’m okay.” Well, that’s what I thought I was saying. That’s what I heard myself saying. He, on the other hand, heard jibberish; grunting, garbled ‘words’, nonsense. He said I was in that state for about 5 minutes.
I recall seeing a car in front of me and hitting the brakes. Everything seemed to be working normally, but clearly, something was wrong.
After about bit, the initial fuzziness dissipated. The numbness was still there, but I was more connected and aware. Somehow, I managed to get to my destination and drop off my son. He kept asking if I was okay, and I insisted that I was, not to worry because I was going to call his dad on my way back.
True to my word, on my way back—feeling somewhat better—I called my husband to ask his advice.
“I think I’m having a … medical emergency.” I wanted to know if he thought I should go to our medical center or directly to the hospital. He told me that I should just pull over and wait for him. Looking at the traffic on the eastbound side of the freeway, I knew it was going to take him more than an hour to reach me. While talking to him, I remember saying something to the effect of: ‘Oh my god. It’s happening again.’ He told me to pull over—not an easy task considering I was in the number two lane of a five-lane freeway and traffic was practically bumper to bumper. Once again, he said that I wasn’t making sense, that he couldn’t understand what I was saying. Instead, as the sensation passed, I told him I was going to keep driving as far as I could and if it happened again, I’d pull over and call him to pick me up.
About 30 minutes later, I finally made it home. I got out of the car for the first time in more than an hour and realized that my leg was … loose. Something was very wrong. I ran inside to use the restroom. Coming out of the bathroom, I came face to face with my daughter. Then it happened again. I was standing this time and my entire right side went numb and I started to fall. Once again, she couldn’t understand me as I heard myself saying ‘I’m okay’. The episode passed fairly quickly and the three of us drove to the hospital to find out what the hell was going on.
While standing at the admittance desk, I told the nurse that I was having a seizure or something and then everything pitched sideways as another episode swept along my right side again. I recall someone saying ‘she’s going to pass out’ then being placed into a wheelchair. I watched as the clipboard loosely held in my right hand fell to the floor when I lost my grip.
Within moments, I had IVs placed in the backs of both hands, I was partially disrobed and placed into a gown, and directions were shouted back and forth.
I vaguely remember noting the time as about 5:30 PM. That meant that from the first episode to the time I began receiving treatment, only 90 minutes had passed. Less than 30 minutes later, I was receiving my first CT scan. About 30 minutes after that, I was in a tele-consultation with a neurologist. I had another very mild episode during that conversation.
Later, I received my second CT scan, this time with contrast. Let me tell you, that was a weird experience. Everything got warm and then hot and then gone. Very strange.
Over the next couple of days, I underwent more tests: MRI, EEG, EKG, ultrasound of my heart. More blood pressure checks than I have ever received in my life—and it was all over the place. Fun times.
As an aside, a big shout out to the nurse that warned me that the EEG paste was vile stuff, but it would have been nice to know that it would require three washes to get it all out of my hair.
After spending a couple of days in the hospital playing human pincushion, with the numbness and tingling sensations still present but muted, the neurologist delivered the news that I didn’t want to hear. It wasn’t a seizure. I had a stroke. A ‘mini’ stroke, but a stroke, nonetheless.
Life is weird. It can change in a breath or the beat of a heart. I feel fine… okay, not fine exactly, but better. I’ve had several very quick (5 or 10 second) episodes since, but nothing like of the magnitude of what I experienced that afternoon.
The aftereffects have been interesting. Numbness in my right upper arm, tingling and numbness in my thumb and forefinger, numbness upon walking in my right thigh, and occasional ‘drop foot’. The headaches are frustrating, the exhaustion is annoying, and I would really like to regain some energy. I guess what I need now is time, as elusive and fleeting as that is.
I’m off work for a few weeks, but know that when I return, I’ll be stepping back into a viper’s nest. At the moment, however, my doctor doesn’t even want me to drive let alone go to work.