This has been a trying week for us as Lorraine has had some medical issues. I’m writing this blog just to record the details of, and solution to, her problems this week. I want it mostly to record her issues whenever we need to remember them. It will not be of much interest to most people.
On Sunday afternoon we were at a local casino, AVI, where we had entered a slot tournament. Lorraine hit the top prize during her spins but missed making the finals by just a few points. I didn’t come close. However, they gave us a ticket that was good for a change to make the finals via a drawing if we were still there at 5:30.
As luck would have it, they drew my name for the last spot in the finals. I was assigned to the machine at the end of the row and there was an extra chair close by so I had Lorraine sit in it so she could watch. This was a five minute flurry of pushing the spin button and getting as many points as possible in the five minutes. Once again, I wasn’t getting very many points on my machine and I was talking with Lorraine too.
Before the five minutes were up, I noticed Lorraine had a glazed, far-away look to her eyes. I figured she might just be deep in thought but the next time I looked at her, I noticed one side of her face was slack and disfigured. I stopped playing the machine and gave her my full focus, the folks running the tournament came over and told me to continue pushing the button, I’m not sure what I told them but they quickly left me alone.
I tried talking with Lorraine but she was unable to talk, she would just grab my arm and shake her head in a yes or no manner. What speech she could make was just a garbled noise, I couldn’t understand her at all. We left before the tournament was over and got her to our car and back to our coach.
A little background here. In 2000 Lorraine was diagnosed with breast cancer. She had to have three surgeries, chemo treatment followed my x-ray treatment. It was during her second round of chemo infusion, as she was laying in the lounge chair, that I noticed she was showing signs of a stoke, very similar to the symptoms she was showing Sunday evening. The right side of her face was slack, her right foot was drooping, her speech was slurred and she couldn’t move her right arm. I was scared and called the doctor over to check her out, told him I thought she was having a stroke right there.
The doctor checked her, ran some blood tests and told me she was NOT having stoke and we should continue with the treatment. As soon as the infusion was over, Lorraine showed some signs of improvement but was still very bad off. The chemo doctor said not to worry as he was sure she wasn’t having a stroke but he couldn’t explain the symptoms she was having.
We left the chemo area and took her straight to the emergency room where they once again checked her for a stoke. They weren’t as positive that she didn’t have a stroke but also continued to check for other causes. To make a long story short on this episode, she had a migraine headache that showed itself with the same symptoms of a stoke. They gave her medicine for a migraine and within a hour she was back to her normal self. She couldn’t remember the past three hours but otherwise everything was good. She had absolutely no remaining physical, mental or speech problems.
So now back to this Sunday night. As with her previous episode, I hoped she was only having a migraine and took her back to the coach where I gave her the pills she takes for a migraine headache. I laid her down in bed for 10 minutes and watched her. She fell asleep and when I woke her in 10 minutes she was somewhat better, she could talk but wasn’t following simple instructions.
I gave her another pill and let her go back to sleep for another 10 minutes. When I woke her this time she was showing significant signs of improvement in her speech. I asked her a few questions and found that although she could talk, she wasn’t comprehending things. I asked her where we were and she knew that but when I asked her what her name was, she couldn’t think of it. Finally she got a big smile on her face and told me her name, Lorraine. I asked her what my name was and got the same big smile as she said “Lorraine”. I asked her the dog’s name and got the same results. When I asked her what our grand daughter’s name was, she still said “Lorraine”. That’s when I had enough of the layman's medical treatment and took her to the local hospital.
Once we got to the hospital things started happening quickly. To their credit, they didn’t worry too much about the paperwork to get her checked in, we got to an exam room and the doctor and nurses started checking her out quickly. I tried to give them all her background info and tried to explain her stroke like symptoms in 2000. They didn’t think these symptoms were the same and continued treating her for stroke.
There is a normal treatment for victims of stroke, I don’t remember the name but they give a blood thinning shot within the first three hours. We had a friend that had a very minor stroke and when they gave him this shot, it caused something to break free and caused a major stroke. I remembered this and wasn’t too keen on having Lorraine get this if she in fact didn’t have a stroke.
The doctor was good, discussing this with us and calling other doctors too. By this time, Lorraine was showing no physical signs of a stroke but was still a bit confused and she wasn’t making much sense when she tried to talk. She couldn’t remember what year it was but was doing ok when it came to remembering family names.
After discussing pro and con about this blood thinning medicine and getting close to the end of the three hour window, I still didn’t want to have her get it. The doctor still was not convinced she had a stroke and agreed, she didn’t get this shot.
The doctor scheduled her for a CT scan of her brain and got her admitted to the hospital. They couldn’t (wouldn’t) do the CT scan then, probably didn’t want to call out a tech I guess. So it was scheduled for the next morning. I stayed around until she was in her hospital room and the nurses had talked to her (and me) enough that I felt it was ok to leave her until morning.
Next morning I headed out at 7 am, not remembering that I was staying in Nevada but the hospital was across the river in Arizona, a different time zone. So it was actually after 8 when I got to the hospital on Monday morning. Unfortunately her doctor had already been in to see her so I didn’t meet her new doctor. However they now had her scheduled for a CT scan of her brain, an ultra sound of her carotid arteries and a MRI of her brain. I also missed it when a speech therapist showed up so I didn’t even know he had been there and checked her.
By now, Lorraine was hooked up to an IV but was showing very little physical signs or symptoms of a stroke. She was able to walk by herself, could operate the remote control and was able to talk with the nurses. But if you knew her, it didn’t take much to realize she wasn’t normal. For example, I would point to objects in the room and ask her what it was was. Sometimes she could get the correct name, other times she would say the last object we had talked about. I pointed to her glasses and asked what they were, she knew the word but when I pointed to a clock on the wall and asked her what it was, she said glasses, same with TV. But the next object was a picture and she named it correctly. This continued throughout the day with some signs of improvement but when she was tired it was worse.
I had to leave her and return to the coach to let our dog out every five hours or so and would always check in with the nurses when I returned. They soon got to know me and realize I was taking a big part in her care so they soon included me in all of Lorraine’s care. We mostly had good nurses, both on days and nights.
They finally got her CT scan but I was having problems finding out her results. When I went home that evening, I still had not gotten the results of it but was determined to see her doctor the next morning to get this and more information.
I was in her room before 6 on Tuesday morning, hoping to see her doctor. I hung around and saw them preform the ultra sound on her neck to check out her carotid arteries and was there when they took her away for her MRI. I took advantage of this time to run back to the coach to take our dog out for a break.
When I got back back, I found I had missed her doctor while I was gone, damn. But I made the nurse get me the results of the CT scan she had the previous day. They had to get the nurse supervisor to get the results for me, I couldn’t understand why I was having problems getting this info. But I did find out there was no indication of any damage to her brain or any sign of a clot there either.
Later that afternoon I got a call from our friends, Joe/Alice, who were coming into town for two weeks. They wanted to get together but didn’t know Lorraine was in the hospital. They came up to visit her and I was watching very carefully to see Lorraine’s reaction to someone beside a doctor or nurse. Their visit went well, Lorraine knew who they were and was able to hold a fairly normal conversation with them.
At this time, we were planning on Lorraine going home on Wednesday after we got the results of her ultra sound and MRI. She had a problem letting them do the MRI, was getting claustrophobic about getting in the machine. There were three tests they wanted to run but were only able to complete one, lucky it was the most critical one.
Wednesday morning I was back to her room before 6 once again, hoping to see her doctor when she made her rounds. I did get to see the speech therapist who checked her out and said he saw lots of improvements too. He did, however, try a few things to check her speech. He asked her simple questions and got normal answers. But he wasn’t satisfied with them and suggested some things to help her. For example, he asked her to name the states in the US. Lorraine could say about 5 of them. He then suggested to close her eyes and “see” a map of the states then name some. She rattled off about 10 before he had her stop.
He also asked her to name some vegetables and once again she was able to name about 5. He then suggested she close her eyes and “see” herself in a store in the vegetable section and name some of what she “sees”. She could name lots.
One other question he asked was “Is it faster to ride a bicycle or ride a train?” Lorraine couldn’t seem to figure out the answer to this but he said that was ok, he just wanted me to see her reaction to a more complicated question.
He had also checked out her writing ability when he was in two days before and told me she could only write her name, nothing else. I had unknowingly checked this out a few hours earlier when I has asked her to name some items in the room and write down their names on a piece of paper. I showed him what she had done and he was very pleased with the improvements she had shown. Only problem was, after she had written these items, I asked her to tell me what she had just written and she couldn’t remember but when I pointed to items in the room she could remember if they were on the list or not.
Lorraine started complaining of a pain on her right side about this time. As it happens, finally her doctor showed up about that time. I let her check out Lorraine then tried asking some questions. The doctor didn’t want to talk to me, said she needed to review her chart and would let the nurses know what was going on. I wasn’t happy with this and tried to get more information from her. She was very evasive, I don’t know if it was because she didn’t know or just didn’t want to tell me.
She left the room and I called in the nurse and told them I wanted some good answers before the doctor left the area. He went out to talk with her and returned very soon to say she was sure close mouthed and arrogant. He said there was no way he would ever have her for a doctor and was going to tell her so.
Once again, I called the nurse supervisor and asked for help getting info from this doctor. She said she would get to the bottom of this and would get the info I wanted/needed. About five minutes later, she and the off going shift nurse supervisor came back to the room with very long faces.
They closed the curtain and said they needed to talk with us. They were pretty solemn, really got my antenna up for sure. They had some papers with them and said they wanted to go over them with us. I asked about the doctor and they said she had talked to them then left but agreed the nurses could go over some of Lorraine’s information.
Anyway, the papers were the results of her CT scan, ultra sound and MRI test. They said the CT scan of her brain was good, same as we had heard before. The MRI of her brain was good too but (that isn’t a good word to hear at a time like this) her ultra sound results showed major blockage and the doctor was not going to release her. She also wanted a neurologist to check out the images and she what they suggested. Also, she ordered a CT scan of her right abdomen to check out the pain she had been experiencing. But she wouldn’t come in and talk with us, like I said, she left the floor before I could get ahold of her.
Ok, so Lorraine would be in the hospital at least one more day but I wasn’t going to let that doctor continue being our doctor. I proceeded to find out what it takes to get a new doctor assigned. Apparently not too many people do this as I was finding some “roadblocks” in the way.
Finally I went to the administration office and got ahold of the supervisor there. I told her I had a problem and needed some help so she invited me into her office and closed the door. I think she had already heard about me and was ready but was surprised to find I was just trying to get the best help for Lorraine, not trying to make a big issue out of the first doctor. She told me about two doctor that were just practicing in the hospital, didn’t have any outside practice so they only serve you while you are in the hospital. She gave me their phone numbers and wished us well.
I tried calling the number she gave me three time and was unable to get an answer, not a good sign. I tried going through the nurse supervisor and she said she couldn’t help me on that kind of a situation. In fact, she couldn’t even tell me good or bad about these new doctors. Boy, what a deal, try to fire a doctor that doesn’t work with you and get one that does is not easy.
Finally I got ahold of someone from their office on the phone, she was very helpful. She said they had all been in a big meeting and no one was available to answer the phone. She said they would assign us one of their doctors, no problem and would make sure the other doctor was off Lorraine case. They would get ahold of the hospital and nurses to insure all this was well coordinated and communicated. What a difference.
About an hour later, two ladies came into Lorraine’s room. They were from our new doctor's office and wanted to get all the information they needed. It went very well and they said the new doctor would be in sometime that afternoon. I went over to the nurse’s station to let the supervisor know and it so happened our new doctor was currently on the floor. I made sure they let him know he was our new doctor and I needed to see him before he left.
About 1/2 hour later this guy walks into the room with Lorraine’s medical chart in hand and introduces himself as her new doctor. He asked Lorraine lots of questions then asked me a bunch too. He then went over her records and explained everything in them, all the test results and such. Just the kind of doctor we were looking for. He was in the room for over 1/2 hour gathering and giving information and suggestions.
He reviewed her info and said with no hesitation that Lorraine did NOT have a stroke but rather a TIA or mini-stroke. He explained it as a stroke is when a loss of blood flow is severe and long enough to cause a section of the brain to die. A TAI or mini-stroke is a loss of blood flow for a shorter time and no brain damage happens. At least that is my interpretation of what he said and he agreed that was the base of it.
He explained about the blockage in the carotid artery and what the normal treatment was, in this case to either remove the clot or install a shunt. I asked about waiting to do this when we were back in the Bay area in two weeks and he strongly suggested doing it as soon as possible. He said we would have to find a doctor and start all over back there and it might take awhile.
So we got on the list to have this procedure done on Thursday. Once again I was in her room early in the morning to wait for things to happen. Of course, she couldn’t eat or drink from midnight until after the procedure so I was pushing for it to happen as soon as it could.
I have put the rest of this story out in a couple of emails I sent out on Thursday and Friday night so I will include them here and not repeat it.
Wednesday night’s note:
Lorraine had a "mini-stroke" Sunday evening and has been in the hospital since. She had some symptoms of a stroke but almost all have gotten better now. No physical issue remain, she walks fine and has full strength in her legs, arms, hands and such. She still has some issue with saying the correct word sometimes but even that is MUCH better.
They have ran many tests, CT scans, MRI, ultra sound, blood test and others. They say there is no sign of a stroke in her brain, ie, no brain damage. They did find her carotid artery, the large vein in her neck to/from her brain, is over 80% plugged on the right side, 60% on the left side. This may have been the cause of her mini stroke, we may never know. The doctor said the policy is to repair any blockage over 70% and monitor anything over 50%.
They have her scheduled for surgery tomorrow to correct this problem on the right side, not sure of the time yet. We didn't get a chance to meet with the surgeon yet so we don't know if they will install a shunt or open and clean the vein. The doctor told us there could be complications but recommended she have it done ASAP rather than wait until we return to the Bay area.
We are comfortable with this decision but any prayer for her would be appreciated! More on her outcome tomorrow or the next day, I will be spending as much time with her as possible and will not have computer access.
Thanks Chuck
Thursday night’s note:
I sent out a note last night about Lorraine's medical problems and asked for everyone to include her in their prayers while she had surgery today.
As you may remember, she had blockage of 80% on the right side, 60% on the left. The surgery was to correct the problem on the right side, we weren't sure of the procedure the doctor was going to do at the time of my note.
This morning I got to the hospital at 6 AM, hoping to see her doctor and the surgeon. The nurses are used to seeing me there and don't give me any grieve about being there before or after visiting hours. They checked the schedule and said she was on the list for morning surgery but didn't have an exact time as she was scheduled as a "fill-in".
They had her off food and water since midnight until they gave her a couple of pills about 9:15 or so, then allowed her a small sip of juice with her pills. The floor nurse was changing her IV to a new spot on her arm when the surgery folks showed up to take her downstairs to the operating room at about 9:30 or so. I followed along but had to stop at the door to the operating area, kissed her, told her I loved her and would see her soon. I was told to wait in the waiting room and they would talk to me after the surgery, at least an hour or more later.
After about 10 minutes a nurse came to get me, said the doctor wanted to talk to me, I haven't met with her yet. So I was escorted into the operating area where Lorraine was waiting for her "turn". The doc came over and told us the surgery wasn't what we were expecting, she was only going to send a camera up from the femur artery to see how bad the plugs were, not remove or shunt them at this time. We would then meet with her in her office at a later date to discuss further treatment. Shoot, not what we wanted to hear, we had hoped this would take care of the issue.
Back to the waiting room for about 1 1/2 hours before I was escorted into the recovery room to meet with Lorraine again. She was still mostly asleep and I had to run back to the coach to take our dog out for a walk. I got back in about 30 minutes and found her still groggy and sleeping most of the time. About 10 minutes later the surgeon came over to let us know what she had found.
And here is the best part!! She said she could find NO blockage in either carotid artery, The plugs shown on the ultra sound were nowhere to be found. She said Lorraine's arteries were positioned a bit different than normal and that may have shown up as blockage but the camera and contrast dye she injected proved there was no plug, both were clean.
Her surgeon and our doctor back in her room said Lorraine would need NO further treatment although they both suggested a change in diet, more exercise and lose some weight. The both agreed she could be released after giving the injection site time to heal, about 5 hours after the surgery.
So thanks to everyone who replied to my note and especially to those who included us in your prayers, the results today were better than we had hoped.
At this time, we are back in our coach, Lorraine has some discomfort in the site on her leg where they put the camera and her arm is full of bruises from the IV and taking of blood. She has no remaining symptoms of the mini-stroke except for a few times she still has to search for a word but I've been doing that for the last 20 years.
So like I said in the subject line, "Who says prayers don't work?" I'm sure that we have just seen the results of it and once again I thank everyone for their prayers and well wishes.
And for those who asked, yes we are still in Laughlin, NV. but the hospital we were at is in Bullhead City, AZ. We had very good service there with one exception, a doctor who refused to answer our questions. I'll cover that in our blog but for now I'll just say we fired her and got a new doctor.
So as my father used to say and I now say to you "Until you are better paid, I thank you!"
Thanks Chuck
Lorraine wanted to send a note also, I've copied and pasted her note here. This is just as she wrote it.
Hello everyone,
It's Thursday and I would like to send a great big thank you to all my family, friends in Facebook, on the social network. I can not believe all the great good wishes you all sent to me over the Internet. All of your great wishes meant the world to me. As Chuck used to say, it is not over until it is over.
Today I went into the the surgery so see what would happen. I was loosing all my faith and hope, but I prayed my good thoughts and wishes would see me through. As Chuck would have it, he knew I would need all faith and hope to get me through this one. He is one funny man. I have the faith of a man of God. God is, was, and is the one true and living God. I prayed and prayed that my faith would see me through. God was good to me. He not only saved my day, but He made it as real as real could be.
Not only did my faith leave me to another situation, but one thing that the Doctor said came true. He said my faith and sole would not be let go, but my faith would be restored. God took me out of that situation, he turned it around, and He said God would make it all the better. That is what happened to me. God was good to be to me. I am safe and sound, I am at home in my home. Thank you lord for all your great good works.
It really is a safe and wonderful world. Thanks again for all your good wishes.
Lorraine North
PS We are at Laughlin, Nevada
Ok, now for the rest of the story. I got Lorraine home on Thursday evening and had her rest for awhile. We later went to the Black Bear Diner for dinner, hospital food isn’t that good and she needed something good. Afterwards we came back and Lorraine went to bed.
Friday morning we both slept in a bit although our dog has now been used to me getting up and out at 4 so she wanted to continue with that schedule. She did let me stay in until about 6 before she started prancing about letting me know she had to go out and go out now. Lorraine got up and I checked her out, still no physical issues, still having some speech problems however.
Later Joe/Alice came by to see Lorraine. They are staying at the same park as us and have checked in with her twice in the hospital and kept in touch via phone often. Anyway, they came by and we made plans to go shopping later.
We stopped by their place a before noon then left to go to town. We had an appointment to get our dog into the groomers and we were going to Wal-Mart then a nearby casino while we waited for Misty to get done. But Pet Smart wouldn’t accept Misty because I didn’t have proof of her current rabies shot, like I carry that everywhere. So we dropped the ladies off at Wal-Mart, drove back the coach to drop Misty off then returned back to Wal-Mart.
First thing is Alice tells me that Lorraine is having some issues in the store, she can’t come up with the correct word of what she is looking for. Once they see it, Lorraine can pick out the correct object, just having trouble saying without seeing it. I tried the trick the speech therapist told us about and it helped. Guess I’ll just have to work with her more and stay with her in the stores for awhile.
We decided not to go to the nearby casino but rather to return to the coach, put stuff away and go to a Bar-B-Q competition at a casino just down the way from us. We toured the tents and stuff then decided to go down the road to a different casino for dinner. We had a good dinner, played a few slots where once again I lost but Lorraine won. By the way, Lorraine had NO problems playing the slots. She wouldn’t even believe me when I told her the speech therapist suggested she not play the slot anymore, can you believe that?
It appears that Lorraine’s speech gets worse if she is tired. At least that is my observation over the day and half she’s been out of the hospital. The site on her thigh where they injected the camera is now very bruised and sore. Other than that, she is doing well physically.
I got a call from Lorraine’s doctor from the hospital on Saturday morning, he wanted to check up on her. I asked him about her speech issues and he said we need to find a family doctor in the Bay area and work with him to possibly get some speech therapy while we are there. So I’ll work on that Monday, want to have them ready to go when we get there or as soon as possible.
He also said he thinks she will have complete recovery from this problem and live a long life. His specialty is actually as a heart doctor and internal medicine and he said all the test results say Lorraine’s heart is better than his, no signs of heart problem there either. Thank you everyone for keeping Lorraine in your thoughts and prayers, that is always a good thing and I know it helped her.
So our plan is to stay here in Laughlin until Friday when we will return to the Bay area. We will be there through Thanksgiving, maybe longer depending on what the local doctor we find there tells us. But at least we are leaving here knowing that Lorraine has a problem and we are working on it as best we can.
The weather has been nice so far although Lorraine and I have spent too many hours inside the hospital instead of being outside. The cold front they have been talking about came in yesterday so instead having the highs in the upper 80s, we will be having upper 60s for the next two days. But early next week will bring us back to the lower 80s, yea.
For anyone who has read this far, I want tell all veterans and current military personnel thank you for your service. It is because of you that we have a great country! Thanks to you all (or is it “all you all”?).
Thanks Chuck
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