MISSING!

Since my last post my life has taken a huge change. My husband had an accident and during the procedure to repair the artery he had a stroke. We were totally unprepared for that to happen. They took him off to the room, as a man who was interacting with me, playing games on my phone while we waited in the ER to someone who did not recognize his wife of 47 years.

He was heading down the stairs in our home and missed the bottom step. The stairs are wood and go onto a wood floor. The distinction is not really clear in the evening when the lighting is dim. (We have since put Washi Tape on that step! I knew it had multiple purposes.) He was carrying a bowl of ice cream and heading down to settle in, watching tv and enjoy his ice cream. I was on the way home from my upline's home when I got a call from my son, who informed me his father had fallen and he was bleeding from his chest. I was 2 minutes from home at most. He had him lay on the floor with a hand towel and apply pressure. He handled it well for a guy who doesn't usually do well in a crisis. When I got home I called 911. There was glass and blood everywhere. My husband had dropped the bowl and fallen onto it. He did not show any signs of a stroke at this time.

They took him off to the hospital where they did x-rays and found no broken bones. They had given him morphine and opoiods for pain. They glued the cut in his chest and were trying to figure out how to put a compression bandage around his whole chest. They were going to send him home with a compression bandage. When I started questioning what they were doing. What is this for? How is it supposed to work? How long will it take? Why is the lump in his chest getting larger by the hour? Why is he is so much more pain than he was when we brought him in? The doctor decided she should do a CT scan. The results showed that he was bleeding internally and his whole chest and stomach wall was filling up with blood. They would have sent him home and he would have died. He would have bleed to death. Always have someone who will ask those tough questions. Don't be afraid to question the doctor. They don't really know the patient. They don't know what is normal for you. They see you for a few minutes and assume that is normal.

They took him into surgery. They went up the artery in the groin and put in a coil. There is where I believe he had the stroke. I left the hospital and 5am and when I returned at 9am he didn't know me. After a couple of minutes he was able to identify me. I continued to tell the doctor that this is not normal for him all day long. She kept telling me was given pain killers and that is why he was this way. He had not had anything since the procedure so by the end of the day I convinced her that he was not this way when I took him in and it was not from the pain killers. She ordered a CT scan and that is when they informed me he had a stroke. Of course, they don't know when.

He came home two days later. He has lost his right peripheral vision. When I think of the many people who have had a stroke and the impact it has had on their lives I know that I have been blessed by God. I know people who couldn't swallow, let alone walk or talk or be able to use the right or left side of their bodies. We are learning to adapt and adjust but we know that God is an amazing God and he can and does heal.

My husband is doing amazingly well. He has been released from Physical and Occupational therapy and we see the ophthalmologist again tomorrow.

Thank you to my team and my customers who have loved me through all of this. You have given me strength and wisdom to know when to say no. You have blessed my life multiple times. I love being with you and you encourage me so much.

In the midst of all this I earned the Stampin' Up Incentive trip to Maui! Pray my husband will be well enough to go with me. I am sure he will. The trip is not until July 2020.