One Day in January: Part One

On January 13th, 2015 my wife of 9 years 2 months and a day had a stroke. Three days later she had a bleed in the brain. She should have died but is here next to me right now.

She can talk fine, her walking without a cane or help is getting better, her French and Spanish languages are intact, she plans on returning to teaching in the fall, she has no issues with memory and looking at her you’d have to ask what happened. It is a testament to her character. Strong willed, independent, and stubborn. And I am crazy about her.

Behind this door is where our lives changed forever.

That morning began like any other, I was already awake with our two boys who are 8 and 5 making breakfast and listening to them argue. My wife was upstairs getting ready as usual when I heard a loud thud like something fell on the floor. I was in the kitchen below getting breakfast ready, packing lunches and setting up the backpacks to go to school. At this time I heard a noise and it was that strange moment when you know you heard something but at the same time was doing something else and couldn’t be sure what you heard. I would always kid around with her about dropping things and guessed that was what had happened. Losing track of time a noticed that it was past to her normal time to come down stairs and finish getting ready to leave. I went to the top of the stairs heard the sink running and asked “are you ok?”. In a normal voice she said, “yes I am fine”. I went back downstairs not thinking anything was wrong continuing my robotic routine. A few more minutes went by and it was well past when she would come down to leave so I went back up knocked on the door again and said, “are you ok?”. Her reply this time was a less distinguishable and sounded strange. The sink water was still running and I heard her making some noises in there. Now my wife was never a fan of me just walking in on her obviously so I broke her rule and just opened the door slightly waiting to hear her say something about it peeked in a little and saw her laying on the floor next to the sink. I closed the door behind me in case the boys came up and ran over to her asking “what happened?”. With a somewhat clear but slightly slurred voice she began to tell me that she was standing at the sink and got real dizzy and fell down. I looked her over quick and saw no immediate bruising or blood. At this point there was still no noticeable signs of anything wrong and I sat next to her sitting her up and holding her by her right side. She was shaking from being cold so I tried to warm her up by putting her robe over the top of her.

I was thinking she had a panic attack which she used to have some time ago. A few years back she was able to get control of them and has not had any major problems since. I asked her “are you having a panic attack?” She shook her head no. I continued to hold her trying to keep her warm and leaned over to see her and noticed the left side of her face had a had looked odd. Looking at her face something was immediately wrong but I did not know what. A few years back I had a friend who had Bells Palsy. That’s what I first thought. Looking more at her I noticed that her left arm was just hanging there. As I picked her arm up to cover with her robe it did not even respond to me moving it and felt like dead weight.

At this point I knew something was wrong. Really wrong. I said to her “something’s not right. Let me get some clothes on you and get you off this cold floor”. I first tried to get her underwear on her. I put them at the bottom of her right foot and with her right hand she pulled the up only on her right side then tried standing up with my help completely not realizing she did not do the other side. Whoa. I thought what the hell is happening. Now I was beyond scared. Confused but not panicking. I had to stay calm. Downstairs the boys were fighting about something. I had to act quick. I took her underwear off her right leg. She asked “what are you doing?” Her speech was very slurred at this point and I picked her up putting her arm over my shoulder and my left arm under her left side, leaning her against me basically dragged her along out to the bedroom doing this I noticed her not moving her left leg at all.

I was able to get her robe around her and lay her down on the bed. She said “ I’ll be ok, just need to lay down”. I told her that I am going to call 911. She asked “why?” and I told her “ because something’s wrong”. I went downstairs to get my phone and I looked at our 8 year old and said “I need to tell you something. Mom is sick. Don’t go upstairs. I have to call an ambulance for her because she is really sick”. Our oldest asked why she was sick. I told him I don’t know that’s why she needed to go to in the ambulance. The youngest suggested making a picture for mom to get better and his brother wanted to see the ambulance. I told him “ you can see the ambulance but not until mom is already inside”. They went to get paper and crayons and I called 911. I had to keep them downstairs. They kept asking to go up to see mom. I am proud of them for listening. They rarely do for me.

The EMT’s arrived within 10 minutes maybe not that long. For me the clock stopped when I first found her. They came in and the boys came out of the kitchen into the foyer to see. I had asked them to go back in the kitchen to finish their pictures and breakfast. I had to stay calm for them. At the same time I told the EMT’s she was upstairs. They went upstairs and looked her over and in one second knew it was a stroke she was having. The EMT’s were talking to her and she told them “ no no, I’m ok. What are you doing here?” and “I’m not going anywhere” basically began arguing with the EMT’s, true to her nature, and they just finally told her “well you’re going”. Some guys went outside to get the gurney brought it in and went upstairs. One of the EMT’s spoke to me and asked about medications., alcohol, drug use and told me she is having a stroke. I couldn’t breathe. I stayed downstairs with the boys. I was so conscious of them being traumatized that I had to keep calm and show them everything will be ok. That was a lie but it was for them. How would they have reacted to seeing that?. I’ll never know. I watched as four people carried my lady down the steps strapped in a gurney wrapped in an orange blanket and rushed her into an ambulance. I let the boys look out the window after she was in and on her way.

I still had no idea what was happening. Shock started to set in and I was beginning to feel numb. Our neighbor was leaving for work stopped and came up to ask what happened. I told her as much as I know and she couldn’t speak. She told me to go with her and she would stay with our boys. I couldn’t do that. They did so well considering, I felt it best for them to go about their normal routine with the exception that our youngest was to go to my mothers instead of dropping him off at her mothers house. I had yet to tell her what happened. I will start here with the next part.

We have a very short time here on earth with each other. This January morning almost made it much shorter.