In September 2017 David Freed was out of town on business when he woke up in the middle of the night.
He thought he might be having a stroke. I went to look in the mirror and to see if I had a facial droop and
which I didn't have.
And
I
didn't have a lot of arm weakness that particular morning
but I did have a lot of leg weakness,
pain in my foot - kind of a numbness or a sleepy feeling to my
left leg. Not convinced he was having a stroke David talked to the hotel manager and explained his symptoms.
He asked the manager to visit with him and let him know if he noticed anything unusual
about David's speech or facial expressions.
Nothing out of the ordinary was noticed. So David went about the rest of his day. If they get any numbness,
tingling, weakness
involving their extremities, their face. If they have difficulty speaking or difficulty finding words, if
their family looks at it is like one side of your face seems a little bit lower than the other, not smiling
right, maybe they're having some confusion. They get a significant headache.
They get some dizziness maybe some vomiting, you know, those can all be signs of strokes and they could be different strokes.
You know, you could have the ischemic stroke
but you could also have a bleed which more you think of with these sudden headaches and the dizziness and things like that.
So it's important if you're getting anything like that out of the ordinary
to be evaluated as quickly as you can. I finished that day and things were fine. He thought he slept crooked.
That's what you said later. You thought you just slept funny. Yeah, I could justify it that I slept on my left side
which I didn't normally sleep on my side
and I thought maybe my leg had just fallen asleep, or I had pinched a nerve or something
because the stroke telltale signs weren't
as obvious as I thought. Because some peeople get, you know, get random numbness or tingling. It happens.
You know you lay on your arm it falls asleep. Some people are a diabetic get prone to getting numbness and tingling in their feet.
With Mr. Freed his was lateralized. He was all on one side.
And it persisted but granted it was subtle. It was just a sensation thing
it wasn't the weakness that you think of like always dropping things,
he can't raise his arm and so his was more subtle. But because it persisted
then we're like, oh, maybe this is something more.
And then he got wise and called his wife
David's wife is a speech therapist. As David described his symptoms. She thought he might have had or was having a stroke.
She told him to stay put and drove to get him. They went directly to the UnityPoint Health
St. Luke's Hospital Emergency Room. St.
Luke's is certified as a primary stroke Center by the Joint Commission the American Stroke Association and the American Heart Association,
which means our team follows set protocols that will provide the best outcome for patients. So we went to ER,
they admitted him saw the stroke.
Considered it minor, kind of a mild stroke at that time and
thought he'd really dodged a bullet. A stroke is what commonly people call a brain attack
so it's any injury to the cells of your brain as a result of
interruption or
disruption of blood flow. So there can be two ways
it can be ischemic, meaning the blood flow has stopped as a result of a clot in there or a clot being thrown
there or it can be hemorrhagic meaning bleeding in the brain.
When these cells are deprived of the blood
it deprives them of the oxygen and nutrients that they need and as a result, then the cells die.
And so then you get these neurological deficits that we see when we describe a stroke. David was admitted to St.
Luke's Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation to begin his recovery. It's a regional leader in helping stroke patients recover.
I think they really thought that no one would know anything it ever happened.
It just seemed like he was it was recovering and doing really well and then we had a second event.
And so that was the Saturday
before we were took a home
the following Tuesday, and we were on the rehab floor and
he had what we now know is an evolving stroke. And so it's kind of a progression
very significant and it was a lot later than typically that might happen.
He has an area of injury
there was a clot in there something that caused damage to those brain cells and they saw it initially on the MRI
they found the area they could see but what happened is that area got bigger and with that
second
evolving stroke.
My left arm was impacted a little bit greater that time. After the second episode David and St.
Luke's rehab team went to work again. Getting him moving and ultimately back to enjoying his new normal.
I think when you go for a mountain climber to bedridden, that's a huge shift
and so there's lots of lots of aspects of that transition that can be challenging and
if we hadn't I think had the care and support the nursing staff were
amazing and always very positive.
I had this thought while I was there that I was getting world-class care the entire time I was there and so
by all means I would recommend it and we have recommend into others. If you have subtle findings
you know, if you're getting weird headaches that you don't normally have, visual changes, you get any numbness, tingling, weakness
you're just not feeling it's best to get it evaluated.
I mean
there's no harm in us taking a look in to see what we think a stroke is a medical emergency
if you think you or a loved one is having a stroke call 911.