Doctor My Eyes

Well, whatever ancient Chinese person I've offended is at it again, because life just keeps getting interesting-er and interesting-er. . .

Last Saturday (23Sep) was a hot day, and I knew it was going to be hot.  So I got out on my bike early, not wanting to be out in the afternoon heat.  I cut my miles a bit shorter than my usual, and was off the road before noon.  Then I ran some errands, and came home.  Saturday afternoon, I was sitting at the dining room table, trying to keep myself adequately hydrated (I was drinking lots of water), when I suddenly became extremely sleepy.  I mean, I was literally nodding off, sitting in my chair.  Which was odd.  But, you know, 60-something individual that I am, I thought I should just take a nap, and I'd feel better.  So I did, and I did.

Saturday evening, we were having dinner with friends at their house, and having a good time.  Then, sometime during dinner, I was looking across the table at one of our hosts, and her face wouldn't come into focus.  No matter how hard I concentrated, I couldn't get her face to snap into focus.  Well, I'm here to tell you, that was strange.  Nothing else seemed amiss, so I just soldiered on through the evening, then went home and went to bed, fully expecting that, in the morning after a good night's sleep, whatever was going on would have worked itself out.

But when I awoke in the morning, my vision hadn't changed at all.  I could see reasonably well in a 'global' sense, but whenever I tried to focus on some small detail, it was 'locally' just kind-of scrambled.  We went to church, and I was scheduled to be a communion minister, which turned out to be interesting in a whole new way.  While I was holding the cup low in front of myself, it sort-of 'disappeared'; I could feel it in my hands, but my peripheral vision couldn't see it.  Then, when I held it up to a communicant, it suddenly reappeared - "oh, there you are!".

After church, we went home, and it didn't take a long time to reach the conclusion that something wasn't right, and hadn't been right since the previous evening, and it wasn't getting better.  So we went to the ER.

After I described my symptoms, the attending doc did a bunch of little 'quick tests' - asking me to push against resistance with each of my limbs in turn, to smile, etc., which I easily recognized as checking for a stroke.  I smiled, happy not only that I recognized what she was looking for, but also that I was passing all the tests.  Then she sent me for a CT scan, and they wheeled me back to my waiting spot.

A half-hour or so later, the doc reappeared, and took a seat next to my bed.  She looked very earnestly into my eyes (which were having trouble focusing on her, but we knew that already), and said, "You've had a stroke."

Um, excuse me?  Did you say I've had a stroke?  That can't be right - all my limbs are fine, my face isn't drooping, and my speech is fine.  Now let's talk about getting my vision cleared up, and forget about all this 'stroke' nonsense.  I mean, I hear all the PSAs on the radio about FAST, and I don't have any of those symptoms.  Well, it turns out that sudden changes in vision are another sign of a stroke, but it isn't in the PSAs, because nobody outside the stroke sufferer him/herself can discern it.

So they admitted me (and I got my very first ambulance ride out of the deal, because they sent me to the 'mother ship' hospital across town that has all the fancy diagnostic equipment), and proceeded to spend the next two-and-a-half days running all manner of tests on me.  I won't bore you with the details, except to say that there is something very surreal about doing an MRI at 4AM.  That damn tube is every bit as claustrophobic as anything you've ever heard about it, and getting shoved into it when you're on an interrupted sleep cycle borders on cruel and unusual.  Mercifully, I managed it by just focusing on taking my next breath in, and then out, and after a few minutes, I was mostly OK.  By about halfway through the test, I even opened my eyes.  But that was not noticeably different from having them closed, so I decided to just close them, and if I fell asleep, so much the better.

By the time I left the hospital last Tuesday, I had a lovely parting gift of a computer chip implanted in my chest, to monitor my heart rate.  They still don't know what caused the stroke, which is a tad concerning, because not knowing what caused this stroke, makes it harder to know how to prevent it from happening again.  The docs are working on the hypothesis that I had an episode of atrial fibrillation (a-fib), possibly due to the exertion of the bike ride and the hot weather (which is reminiscent of another a-fib episode I had six years ago, just before my dad died), and a blood clot from the a-fib made its way  to my brain, and clogged things up.  So they want to watch and see if I have any more a-fib episodes, in which case, they'll put me on a blood thinner.

I have two more doctor appointments this week, and the promise of more to come, I'm sure.  I had to go on disability at work, since I can't drive, and reading is a struggle.  The docs are telling me that my vision ought to return to normal within 1-3 months, and all will be well, except for that not-knowing-how-to-prevent-it-from-happening-again thing, and we're working on that.  My PT, such as it is, is to take daily walks, and read a lot, to help my brain re-route the 'reading' app.  So, you know, that's not too bad.  At some point, I'll want to get back on my bike, if only to tax my heart enough to give the monitor something to look at.  But maybe not just yet.  And I've got to lose weight.  Again.

(*sigh*)

So here I sit, waiting for my vision to come back enough for me to read and drive, so I can go back to work.  Other than that, there is nothing wrong with me (well, you know, other than the things everyone has always known were wrong with me).  So, it's a little weird.

The adventure continues. . .  ;)