A Stroke of Luck

A Stroke of Luck----------------------------------------------------------------------
It was 2:00 a.m. and for some reason I came wide awake. Being a nearly 66 year old man, I decided that since I was awake, and since the bathroom was only a few feet away, I might as well get up. At my age one never misses an opportunity. As I began to sit up, I noticed that my right arm had fallen asleep and was not doing its part in the effort to raise my body to an upright position. Must have slept on it wrong, I though, then it hit me – I was not sleeping on the arm, it was lying stretched out by my side. From shoulder to finger tips, there was nothing but a wooden feeling, someone else’s arm swinging heavily at my side. “Can’t be any really big deal,” I thought, “probably it just needs to be moved around a little.” I began to move it around and there was some sensation, but certainly nothing like I had ever felt before. Every nerve in my body seemed to be vested in the hairs on my arm and alternate sensations of cold and hot rushed through my arm, caused by nothing more than touching the arm with my other hand. It was when I actually got to the bathroom and the arm crashed into the raised toilet seat, causing it to come slamming down that reality began to slam down. I was having, or perhaps more accurately, had already experienced, a stroke.
“What in the world are you doing in there, is something wrong,” came the sleepy voice of the brown eyed girl from the bedroom.
How exactly does one go about telling your wife you have had a stroke, was the question of the moment.
“Honey, the funniest thing happened while I was sleeping….” Or
“You know how you have been wanting me to slow down a little…..” Perhap,
“Hey, do you remember Matt Surdurski? The guy I worked with we all called lefty….”
The fact is, there is no good way to break that kind of news to your wife, so I just said, “I think I may have a problem.”
“What kind of problem?”
“I think I may have had a stroke.”
Well, if you are ever looking for a way to get your wife out of bed really fast …. I don’t recommend that one. Oh, it will get her out of bed fast but you need to be ready to deal with what comes next.
In her case it was hardly a word, she just began getting her clothes on and discussing to where she should drive me. We settled on heading west on 70 highway and deciding on the way if our destination was St. Thomas Hospital in Nashville, where all my doctors are located, or UMC in Lebanon, which was closer.
In the interim, I was struggling in a one armed way to get my own clothes on and for some reason felt incredibly calm. My mind was making a list of things I could and could not do with one arm that would not work.
I could probably still drive the tractor on the farm but shifting gears would be a challenge.
I could probably not use my zero turn mower.
I could probably not play my guitar any longer – although that was probably no great loss to the musical world, it is like an old friend to me.
I would have to learn to sign my name with my left hand.
Using a keyboard for writing would be torturously slow.
Taking assessment, I discovered that I had a little movement in my wrist, and made a few practice strokes but decided that I was not likely to be invited to join Ricky Skaggs’ Kentucky Thunder.
Somewhere in the midst of all of this assessment, I had the presence of mind to go to the medicine cabinet and chew up and swallow without water, three whole full strength aspirin – not the kiddy kind the big boy stuff. I knew that somewhere deep within my cerebral cortex was what my neurologist called a “puny” artery, underdeveloped at birth, which had caused me to have a TIA in 2004 and I knew that blood had a tough time passing freely through its punyness.
I had been placed on Plavix, a medication which makes one’s platelets slippery, and a daily aspirin following the TIA and had remained continuously on the medication for 6 years until being taken off a few days prior in preparation for a mildly invasive medical test. I took two of the aspirin, then thought, man like, if two are good, three would be better. As we roared down 70 highway, we came upon the Round Lick Creek Bridge, which had been closed to all but one lane and a stop light at each end controlled the traffic flow though the single lane. I knew that in the daytime the sign read, “Maximum time Red, Three Minutes.” The brown eyed girl did not wait the three minutes much to my consternation. Instead she took the law into her own hands and roared across the bridge in spite of my protests. She was firmly in charge and I knew it. I wondered if it was a harbinger of things to come.
Well to make a long story short, I was transported to St. Thomas Hospital by ambulance from UMC enduring a harrowing 27 minute ride in morning rush hour traffic arriving at the destination just before 7:00 a.m. Somewhere on the way the arm began to regain feeling and some movement and by the evening of the first day, I was able to have limited usage of the limb.
It is now 6 days later and most of the paralysis is gone, with the exception of a shade of fine motor skills that will likely return in time, according to the doctor. “Miss Daisy” is still driving and I am reluctantly sitting in the passenger seat. A neighbor and his two sons showed up this morning and cut my lawn while I sat and watched – grateful but somewhat embarrassed, I must admit.
When I went to bed the night before, I had thought through the next day‘s agenda;
1. Ride out to Defeated Creek Campground and see if it was water damaged. (I still don’t know the answer to that.)
2. Pick up the shirts in Main Street Laundry at Carthage. (They are still there waiting for me – at least I hope so.
3. Check out the rest of the fence line on the farm to see if any tree tops twisted out on the fence. (They had but Randy found them and sawed them off – not me.)
4. Have breakfast at Timberloft with the brown eyed girl. (I finally got something to eat after noon, which was snatched away by a stern nurse who said I was having tests and shouldn’t have gotten a tray.)
5. Check on getting a new roof on the Carthage house. (The old patches will have to last a while longer)
All of life’s priorities can be changed in a moment in the twinkling of an eye and it can come slamming home to us exactly how fragile we are, and how fragile is life. When the ambulance carrying me to St. Thomas Hospital turned onto Interstate 40, we passed the white Chevy Trail Blazer with the brown eyed girl driving, looking fearfully at the disappearing back of the paramedic vehicle, and it hit me. This is real, this is serious, and all of my plans of yesterday have no further meaning or importance in light of new developments.
“Yet you do not know what your life will be like tomorrow. You are just a vapor that appears for a little while and then vanishes away. Instead, you ought to say, “If the Lord wills, we will live and also do this or that.” But as it is, you boast in your arrogance, all such boasting is evil.” James 4:14-16

If my life is like a vapor, Lord, let it be like the steam that drives a useful engine, not like the fog that obscures the vision of others.

Have a blessed day and visit us at Maple Hill church of Christ. Bob