An Absolute Miracle!

Many of you have been wondering why I haven't posted to my blog in the last week. I've been extremely busy this week with my family and have really debated whether I wanted to discuss what happened with my family this week on my blog.

When I last posted, I was about to leave on a 3 day camping weekend. We went to Deer Creek State Park this weekend and had a great time camping with friends from Church. We had a wonderful weekend and a great start to the week.

That suddenly changed Tuesday evening. My wife and I were sitting at home. I was watching some stupid movie and my wife was checking her e-mail. I made a comment about how stupid the movie was and my wife didn't respond. I glanced over at her and noticed that the laptop had slipped off her lap and was laying at an odd angle. She also had an odd look on her face. I asked her if everything was alright, and she responded in a slurred speech that she was 'having trouble thinking'. She stood up and it was immediately obvious that she was having trouble standing and balancing. As a former paramedic, the altered level of consicousness and difficulty speaking immediately made me think that she was having a stroke. She was trying to walk to the bathroom and I assisted her in doing so. As soon as we arrived at the bathroom, she began vomiting. I grabbed a trash bag and immediately put my wife in the car.

Within a few short minutes, we were at the hospital. My wife was still vomiting and could no longer walk. I found a wheelchair and rushed her to the emergency room. I told the triage nurse that I believed my wife was having a stroke and she immediately signed her in and cleared an ER bed for her. By this time, my wife could no longer talk and appeared to be quite confused. The staff immediately began to work on her, starting an IV; putting her on a heart monitor; starting oxygen; drawing blood; and checking her sugar level (which was normal). A couple of minutes later, an ER doctor came into the room and evaluated her. It had only been 25 minutes from my wife's first symptom occurring, but at this point she had lost the ability to speak and couldn't move her arms or legs. I was trying to think of what could cause paralysis in all four limbs (other than an injury) and the only thing I could think of was a stroke near the brain stem. The ER doctor immediately ordered a stroke protocol and they took her for a Cat Scan. The result of the Cat Scan was negative for bleeding in the brain, but the neurologist thought he saw something in the lower part of the back of the brain. He consulted with another neurologist at Riverside Hospital and decided that the only reasonable explanation was a blood clot in the lower part of her brain. He started TPA (a clot busting drug) and ordered a medical helicopter to transfer my wife to Riverside. Needless to say, this entire episode was very scary!

The helicopter flew my wife to Riverside and I began driving. By the time I arrived at the Riverside emergency room, my wife could talk and her level of consciousness had improved, although she still couldn't move her arms or legs. Over the next several hours, she slowly regained movement in all her extremities and over the next 18 hours, she basically returned to normal. The hospital performed 3 more cat scans; an MRI and numerous other tests. All the tests pointed to a stroke that had been repaired by the prompt application of TPA. She was in intensive care until Thursday, when she was released.

As the title of my post indicates, I believe that a miracle was certainly present in this incident. The sequence of events that led to a successful outcome was astounding. First, I was with my wife at the time of her stroke and immediately recognized what was happening. Next, the right people were on duty at our local hospital to rapidly evaluate my wife. The doctor that was on duty aggressively treated my wife with TPA even though her relative young age (40's) and complete paralysis were not a typical presentation for a stroke victim. If the neurologist had hesitated on the treatment to be 100% sure on the diagnosis, the outcome would likely have been quite different. TPA can only be administered within 3 hours of the initial onset of symtpoms. Moreover, the TPA (clot busting drug) worked perfectly and my wife regained complete movement. It was apparent from my interaction witht the hospital staff at Riverside that this is the exception as opposed to the rule. In fact, the ICU nurse said that she had only ever seen one other patient released directly from the ICU.

If there is any lesson to be learned from this incident, that lesson is to know the symptoms of a stroke and immediately get the victim to the hospital. My wife is living proof that rapid treatment can make all the difference! I am very thankful that my wife is back home and healthy!!!