I had taken my son to a soccer game and as I was sitting there, I just kind of leaned
forward and I had my arms on my knees and I noticed my whole left arm went completely
numb. And as we were leaving, we were in the parking lot and I just collapsed. I don’t
remember a whole lot at that point. I just remember I had no feeling or movement on my
entire left side.
I was home by myself with the two youngest kids and I went to the ER in Norfolk and remember
walking into the ER and was scary. She was laying on the gurney and she was completely
paralyzed on her left side, 100 percent couldn’t move, couldn’t feel anything; she was had
facial droop and just bad. You just don’t expect to see your wife, who’s 32, having
a stroke in the ER.
She was in a unique situation because she had just delivered a baby. So, because of
her post-partum state, there was an issue of whether she could be treated like other
people are treated. I think what happened back home was that they recognized, “She’s
having a stroke and she’s not going to be a candidate for the usual sorts of therapies”.
So we have to figure out, is she going to be a candidate for more advanced therapies
that aren’t widely disseminated. You can’t just get the drug and give something else;
you’re going to have to move her and that would the choice was then to move her to the
Med Center so that we could see if she would be a candidate for the alternative therapy.
Are you going to do a procedure where you’re going to go through and go up into the arteries
and try and open them? Or is that not in her best interest? Will that make the problem
worse? That’s the critical decision-making issue. Where we start getting access into
the groin and very similar to somebody having a cardiac catheterization who’s having a
heart attack. And then what you do is inject dye into the carotid arteries and the veritbral
arteries and what you’re trying to do at that point in time is simply figure out the
road map; what’s blocked, what’s not blocked, how is the brain being fed with blood, which
parts aren’t getting blood? What we initially did was went up and we got through, we put
some medication TPA into the blood vessel to have that start working to break down the
blood clot that had gone up into the blood vessels of the brain. Then we went back down
into the blood vessel of the neck where the blood vessel was blocked. And we worked on
opening that up. What you’re shooting for is good enough to either limit the size of
the stroke or eliminating the stroke altogether.
She was already in surgery by the time we got here; waited in the waiting room with
some family and it was just terrifying. I went to school here so I kind of know this
is the place to be.
Once we figured out what was happening, we started the anesthesia part of it; getting
the blood pressure up, we got through the blockage. We gave the littic medication, which
helps open up the blood vessel of the brain and then we started working on the neck. And
once we have that done, the procedure’s done. So then the next day, you can see that
she’s starting to move her arm and you get another picture and you can see what size
of her stroke. And the size of her stroke was small, something that’s pretty recoverable.
And that’s the way it’s actually worked out; she basically has no deficit.
I remember walking into the room and she was still intubated and she was moving her left
side because she was agitated because she was intubated. Amazing to see that after what
we had been through. Because I knew at that point that she was probably going to be okay.
We have worked since 2003 toward building the expertise, training the organization to
bring consistency to the care of patients with stroke. The gold-plus award that the
American heart association has awarded to us is certainly a big signature essentially
to the care that we provide. What does it mean? It means that somebody else from the
outside is able to not only measure what we do, but measure it and compare it to other
centers around the country. It’s telling us that, “You are doing a great job at keeping
the level of care to where the standards are today based on the latest evidence, the latest
research.” In order to coordinate all of these efforts and making sure that it happens
is, by itself, a prowess that we should all be very proud of.
It’s pretty amazing.
It took a whole team approach and that’s how it is in medicine; it’s not just one
person that saves the day, it’s always everybody from the receptionist to the nurse to the
doctor to the physical therapist. It’s a team approach and that was really evident
on Nicole’s case where not even the same team at the same hospital, it’s just the
healthcare community really came together. That really was outstanding.
I’m fully functioning like I was before; I have very minor deficits that most people
wouldn’t notice and don’t bother me one bit. The nurses were amazing. With everything
with my home life and all of that was going on at the time they really provided that physical
and emotional support that I desperately needed at that time. And words can’t express my
gratitude and appreciation, not just for Dr. Thorell, but for all of the nursing staff
and other staff. The therapists kept me going every day. It has been the most positive experience
I’ve had with a hospital. My family and I will forever be grateful for the care we
received here. It was life-changing.
If it wasn’t for Dr. Thorell and the nursing staff and everybody, my kids would not have
the mother that they have. It’s amazing.