Recovery is coming along at a slow and steady pace I am walking just about every morning now up to the corner and back, today is the second time I walk back and forth twice, it felt like a mile. At 7:30 in the morning the air was cool and drier and the sky was clear. The Birds sang the entire time.
I don’t remember when an August sailed along quite so quickly as it has this year, except the last week when I found myself once again hospitalized after dinner on the 25th when all of a sudden I felt something off with my left eye, it felt as if I had something in it but knew I didn’t and when I looked at my dinner plate it looked as if it was outlined in a very bright glitter, when I looked up the entire room looked that way and my left eye felt it was too big for the eye socket. I waited a bit and my vision became worse and I developed a slight headache, it now looked as if I was looking out a window that someone splattered purple, yellow and blue paint on after about 10 minutes the vision went totally black and I knew I was in trouble. Off to the ER I went while in the exam room all of a sudden there were 5 other people standing around asking questions, looking for veins and before I knew it someone said STROKE ALERT. Yikes.
I was admitted after several test and lucky enough in between video consults and test my vision began to clear and by the time I was in my room, with a view I might add, my vision had returned completely. And then the nightmare begins, I am not a great patient, I dislike being hooked up to monitors that have alarms going off every 5 minutes constantly which messes with my need to sleep. I get irritable when I can’t get up and down to use the bathroom on my own. AND I detest when nurses and doctors don’t listen when I day my blood pressure tends to spike especially when I am in a stressful situation and it’s quite normal for me so don’t keep freaking out when it gets so high. I know they have to because I am on stroke alert, but turn off the room monitors so I can sleep, since they are being monitored in a little room down the hall, they finally did.
Lucky enough the MRI of the brain came back negative for a stroke, but my carotid arteries are worse than a year ago, thanks to my former cardiologist dropping the ball on the neurosurgeon not getting back to him on the 3 visits I had when he kept asking if I heard back, No I didn’t and give me a name and number so I don’t have to depend on your office to set up. Well that’s water under the bridge and partially my fault for not being more aggressive, I thought I could trust the doctor to be honest with me and I was so wrong, the reason he is now my former cardiologist, I lost total confidence in him.
So anyway, the left carotid artery is now 100% occluded and the right now has a stent, it was 75% clogged. There is a clot in the M1 part of my brain that nothing can be done about so I feel like a ticking time bomb. What really gets me worked up is that in July of 2021 when I got the 2 other stents in my coronary artery they told me they couldn’t do the carotids because a neurosurgeon had to deny the surgery, well I found out that was a big lie and it could have been done right then and there or on a different day. I was fuming and they keep wondering why my blood pressure won’t go down. HUH!
I am thankful the surgeon put in the stent and now I have to once again rework my diet going from low fat to no fat makes sense right, the hospital had me on a regular diet which blew my mind since they were aware of the carotid and coronary artery disease, not to mention the 3 obstructed abdominal arteries which the surgeon told me can be dealt with. I am a mess spent the entire weekend in the hospital until the surgery on Monday the 29th, I was hoping to go home in the afternoon, but spent another day and was released on Tuesday the 30th.
In between being admitted and the surgery I was moved to 2 other rooms, on the 1st move while I was speaking with two people on the surgeons staff I was given a shot of Hydralazine which I had a terrible reaction to, it is supposed to rapidly drop the BP in my case my heart began to race and my ears were pounding, I couldn’t breathe and my hands and feet started tingling, I thought I was having a heart attack. It took about 30 minutes or so for me to start to feel normal again in the mean time I was demanding to go home, I felt I would die in that hospital if I didn’t, after a while I regained my calm, spoke with the doctor and decided to stay. I insisted on no other medications except what I take at home.
Ten minutes later they wanted to try something else, NO. The nurse came back 30 minutes after that with something else and again I refused. I was being moved back to the 4th floor where I was before they moved me to the 6th floor. I don’t think I had been up there more than 2 hours when all this happened. As I was being wheeled to the elevator we were told they nurse on the 4th floor was refusing the report from the nurse on the 6th floor and back to my room I went, 20 minutes passed and I was on the move again the nurse now accepted the move. So down I went, wheeled into my room, when the staff that moved me was leaving an argument began in my doorway, fighting about moving patients down without an okay and blah blah blah, I asked one of the nurses to have them discharge me I don’t want to hear this argument in my doorway, unfortunately I was in front of the nurses station. Poor man is trying to calm me down and I am getting more and more upset. Finally they moved the argument away from my door and I asked to close the door. A few minutes later a nurse came to apologize and told me it wasn’t about me, I don’t care I can’t be in this environment I have enough going on and my blood pressure is going to keep spiking with all this negativity.
I did find my calm once again my blood pressure was staying high most of the time, dropping to normal or not high enough to set off the alarms, when the nurse came in to say they were going to give me Hydralazine I nearly lost it. NOT gonna happen that stuff nearly killed me upstairs. I am not taking anything except what I take at home, I did mention I have a prescription for Valium 5mg but I usually break them in half cause 5 makes me like a zombie. They checked my prescriptions and confirmed I do have Valium prescribed so the doctor order the 5 mg intravenous. WOW did not expect it to hit me so fast my son was there at the time and let me just say this I could never be a spy cause on just 5 mg of Valium I was ready to give away all the family secrets. I don’t recall anything he told me I said in the first few minutes of getting the dose but I mentioned a few days prior I had a dream about a mushroom growing out of my check and he said I kept talking about mushrooms on my face and a contraband tea bag I had. It was actually funny when I got my wits about me again.
Anyway, despite everything, I have a stent in my right carotid artery, a clot in my brain, a desire to purge stuff and get on with my life.
In less than a week the full moon will rise, in a few weeks Autumn officially arrives and once again I have to make major life changes.
I am still working on the Moon Crystals embroidery piece though I did fall behind a little bit I need to complete the moth and it will be completely stitched I should be up to stitching later in the week.
I am enrolled in a Broom Making class in early October and a group I am in is having a Broom decorating workshop the following week so this article came at a great time.
