Boy what a crappy year this has been...

[doomsday]

Hi guys, long time no see. Just thought I would give an update.

Near the end of feb while I was out of town for work, I ended up having a stroke at the ripe old age of 45. Almost completely paralyzed my left side. I did not have any of the typical signs of a stroke, actually almost the opposite. My coworker and I had went out for supper after our meeting that afternoon. Right at the end of the meal I had about 10 seconds of dizziness and it went away.

After that, I went to grab my drink with my left hand and almost yanked it off the table. The glass felt almost weightless so it surprised me how easily I lifted it. When we got up to leave, my leg was also acting the same way, it felt much lighter than my other leg. We left and I even drove on to our hotel. After being in the hotel for an hour or so, it was getting very difficult to walk. You would have thought I was just drunk. anyhow, I grabbed my coworker and we headed to the emergency room where after some tests the determined I was having a stroke. Since it was still within the 3 hour window, they gave me "stroke" medicine to help unblock the clot (even though they couldnt see it on a scan).
I freaked out the doctor while they were giving me this medication as I was sitting there on my phone with my wife letting her know what was going on. After asking the doctor why I kept stairing at me he said,Sorry, I have never seen anyone be able to talk normally while being givin this medication.
Go figure, I do everything ass backwards lol.

Well, by the time the shipped me off to another hospital my arm and leg had become like rocks and I could barely move them by even an inch. After spending a week in the hospital I was shipped out to therapy where I spent a month. At least the food was decent. I think I ate twice the week I was in the hospital due to it being so horrible.

So here we are in november. I have some use of the leg and arm, actually a fair amount. still cant move my foot at the ankle but they said it could be a year or more for that to return. I have function of my hand however reaction time is super slow, so no scooting for me till I can get hand moving quicker in case of a needed emergency stop. I will ride again! I guess I was lucky in one way, I was going for my motorcycle learners permit that week when i got back. It would have really sucked to have gotten that and then not be able to ride the entire time. lol, I guess my procrastination did somewhat payoff.

I mainly wanted to share this story with you guys and gals to let you know that a stroke can present itself without the typical "signs" they say to look for. So make sure to add limb lightness to that list. If I had of known that, I could have went in sooner and possibly saved me some of the troubles my left side went through.