Dr. C's life story continued.......

Hi everyone! I am going to tell my story starting with this chapter. In 2005, I owned an Urgent Care but still worked in the emergency rooms of two different hospitals. One evening on my way to work I developed a neck ache and headache. At the time I was subleasing space to a chiropractor. I called him and said "I can't work like this all night", with the headache and all. He advised me to stop at the Urgent Care on the way to work and he would 'crack' my neck. I stopped in and he 'cracked' my neck. Afterwards I was feeling good! The headache was gone and I felt like I could make it all night at work.

It was an uneventful night at work. It was Good Friday and apparently all were tucked away in bed and the night went very smooth. The next day I went home and went to sleep. When I work at night, I can usually sleep all day, wake up and sometimes just go back to work. However, I didn't work the following night, but did have to work the day shift the next day, Easter Sunday. So, I tried to wake up early, around 1pm or so and I did. It was laundry day, ugh! So when I woke up, I put my clothes into the washer. When the washer finished, I got up to go put the clothes in the dryer and got very dizzy! I rationalized that I just got up too fast! I sat down and resolved my dizziness and put my clothes in the dryer. My plan was to wake up early, go workout, get tired enough so I could sleep all night for work the next morning. Yikes, I didn't realize what had occurred! I did just that! I went to work out and then went for a sushi dinner.

I made it home and went to sleep as planned. I slept very well and it was great! I was living by myself so I didn't speak to anyone, or I guess there was no one to speak to. I got up and got into the shower. Wow! I got very dizzy again! This time I rationalized that the water must have been too warm and the blood all went to the surface of my skin and away from my brain causing me to become dizzy. I finished getting ready for work and walked outside to my car. This time the dizziness did not resolve. I had a feeling at this point that something was wrong. I had the Urgent Care's check book in my car and it was payday (2005) on Monday, the next day. The hospital was again on my way to work, so I figured I had better leave the check book at the clinic so payroll could be done. As I did a u-turn to park my car and leave the check book. I got so dizzy that I became very nauseous and threw up! I drove to the hospital at that point!

Ugh, I can't believe I still drove! I arrived at the hospital and went right to radiology. I needed a CT Scan of my brain. This was the first time I tried to talk with anyone. Have you ever seen 'Cousin It" from the Adams Family? That is what I sounded like! I couldn't speak😟! The tech just repeated what he thought I said, "you want a scan on you?". I could just nod my head at that point. He scanned my brain and then called me to look at it. I could see several lucencies particularly in my brain stem but also in my cerebellum! Clearly, I had suffered several strokes! As it turned out, I suffered four embolic strokes. The chiropractor that 'cracked' my neck, also dissected my vertebral artery causing a large clot to form. The clot migrated up my basilar artery and broke into four pieces causing embolic strokes in my Pons, Medulla oblongata, and two (one each side) of my cerebellum. The upshot of this event was, I couldn't talk, I was ataxic, couldn't write, and lost much of my coordination. I didn't have left or right sided weakness which oftentimes accompanies stroke victims.

Obviously, I was out of work for several months. It turned out my ex-wife had canceled my insurance about two months prior to this event, so I had no insurance and was on my own! I had decided to leave my wife of 25 years the November before the strokes. I guess this was payback. It took me several months to recuperate. I will say, my ex-wife took me in to allow me to rehabilitate myself for as long as it took! Thank you for that, if you happen to read this blog! I went about a systematic way to rehabilitate myself. I read out loud medical journal articles while I enjoyed my morning coffee. Then I would take a verse out of the bible and time myself writing the verse down. I would do this over and over until I could read what I wrote. Journal articles were great for enunciation. Certainly I could understand them, but I had great difficulty in enunciation.

Months into it I had regained my ability to talk and write. Now, I still have some trouble. When you watch my video, you hear me say "Thanks for visiting my website". you can hear a little slur when I say "visiting", yeah, that is a residual slur I have from my strokes. Now, if I concentrate, I can say it without difficulty. When I was shooting this video I had to do several 'takes'! I am just not Tom Hanks and can't perform like him! It was the best take so we went with it!

One of my other complications from my strokes was that I became afraid of heights! So, how do you overcome your fears? Yes, you face them! Tim Mcgraw sang a song "Live like you were dying", a great song!! Well, I went sky diving! Yes! Of course, I used that song as background music to my skydiving video. I climbed Mt. Kilimanjaro too! Indeed, it seemed like that song was written for me😉!!

My MRI that I had done at that time was interpreted by a friend who is a neurosurgeon. He advised me that a meningioma was also seen in the films. He said it would likely be nothing to worry about, just keep an eye on it! Great advice, especially knowing my next chapter!! Stay tuned!!

Dr. C. - out!