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If any of my friends are around and available to talk, I really need to talk to someone about something really bad that's happening right now?
Thanks everyone. What's going on is Heather fell in the bathroom, I found her immediately, she was breathing irregularly and unresponsive and not oriented to her surroundings. She's in the ER now and regained consciousness but has a small brain hemorrhage and expressive aphasia.
She's having more CT and contrast scans and angiography now. Again, she is alive and conscious. We don't know what's going to happen next. The neurologist suggested a small bleed like this could be recovered from in a matter of weeks.
There is a lot that is unknown and up in the air right now and we don't know what is going to happen. Her mother is here and helping. The kids were so scared but they did so well with calling 911 and they're calming down now.
We don't have health insurance, she's pretty much the sole earner. We're going to need to figure out how to work all this out financially. We're going to need to figure out the logistics of this because I don't know how long she'll be in the hospital.
I've never dealt with anything like this before and I just pray I did my best for her. I'll keep everyone updated but things are going to be a little spotty for a while. Thank you for being here.
If any of you have any experience or resources regarding recovery from expressive aphasia or communication strategies, I'd really appreciate that. There is a lot that I am going to have to figure out how to navigate.
They are going to airlift her to a hospital downtown. She has a large clot that needs to be handled with some kind of procedure. They say the prognosis for this is good. She is speaking much more clearly and coherently now and is having somewhat normal conversations.
She knows what year it is. She knows who the president is and has the appropriate emotional reaction to that.
I'm now being told this is actually extensive clotting throughout the brain. I'm not getting many details on this or what might have caused this. They're saying she has a rapid heartbeat and high blood pressure.
We're on our way to the hospital. She'll be in interventional radiology for 2-4 hours for the procedure. We were told it is risky but we were also told it has a 99% survival rate as opposed to 40% survival rate without it.
It's really, really difficult not knowing what's happening right now.
She's still in the procedure right now. The hospital is only letting her have one visitor per day. Today that's her mom. They're telling me and the kids that we can't even stay here.
So this is all going to be delayed secondhand updates because I can't even see my own wife when she's having a stroke. We'll figure out some kind of video call.
I'm trying to stay calm. Ativan is taking some of the edge off but there's just no way to cope well with something like this.
One of the life flight pilots told us "never goodbye, always see you later!" when I kissed her goodbye. I appreciated his attitude, it was helpful.
I see all of you offering hope and help and encouragement. Thank you. It means so much not to be alone in something like this.
I'm so scared for her and I've never felt this level of fear for her and I don't know how to process it. There were a few moments after I found her when her breathing literally just *stopped* before it kicked back in. Her lips were blue.
The kids are doing seemingly well. I'm making sure to keep them occupied and talking and telling them it's going to be fine.
The neurologist they teleconferenced in was a really awesome guy. Just a having-one's-shit-together role model.
The possibility has been raised that the sinus infection she was seen for at primary care last week was a misdiagnosis and this was actually a thrombosis of the sinus veins in the brain. Which kind of sounds like we did not catch this early at all.
Once the air clears at the end of this I'm sure there will be a full accounting of what happened, what went well, and what went wrong.
She's still in the procedure and we haven't heard anything.
I just want everyone to know that Heather is a good person, an incredible person, a brilliant person, my absolute best friend I spend every moment next to, she's someone I can't even imagine not being in my life. She is so, so inexpressibly important and so beautiful.
She doesn't have her phone with her but when she does I think it would mean a lot to her to come back to well-wishes for @ADubiousPronoun
Right now I am having trouble with the slowness of the passage of time.
I am very new at hospital and emergency situations such as these and I am trying to draw on my patience while keeping my stress suppressed.
Still no updates on the procedure. Kids and I are staying hydrated and having snacks.
We're being told it's still going to be a while.
Holding it together in Florida
They're saying it'll be 30 to 40 more minutes.
Love the staff telling us we can't sit in the waiting room we have to sit by the gift shop away from everyone else. Then telling us we can't sit on the floor by the gift shop. America is its own Soviet nightmare. These are my kids and their mom isn't even out of the procedure.
So we're just sitting here in our masks in the epicenter of a mismanaged viral pandemic being told not to sit there, no not there either.
I'm trying to figure out what this all means.
Still no word on anything yet.
It's only been like 8 hours since it happened but it feels like forever.
Thank you again to everyone for all your advice and kind words. It's really been helping to keep me centered and oriented.
It's just that until she comes out of this we have *no idea* where this is going to fall from best possible thing to worst possible thing. I don't know if my wife is okay. I don't know if my Heather's okay.
Can I show you all some photos of us?
We've been talking to each other since August 2010 and we've never stopped. We've been together since April 2011. We got married in July 2014.
Some of you have been asking what you can do to help out with incidentals over the next few days or however long this takes. This all is definitely going to need a gofundme once we're not in the middle of pure crisis mode but my paypal is zjemptv@gmail.com.
She's out of the procedure and in the ICU now. We're told she's conscious and is doing well. We're waiting to hear more details.
I haven't seen her for hours now. I really hope we can do a video call.
They're saying she can move and can speak clearly, and is just somewhat groggy from anesthesia.
Apparently there were many clots that had to be cleared from the left side of her brain and they are still trying to figure out what would have caused the clots.
She's resting and sleeping now. She says she's not scared and her head doesn't hurt anymore. They're not letting anyone stay with her tonight. I'm going there tomorrow to spend all day with her.
She's been able to speak and hold conversations clearly with almost no noticeable impairment, so that's really good. The kids and I are home now and we are going to try to catch up on our rest. This has been a really difficult 12 hours. Thank you to everyone who was here for us.
A lot of deferred things are hitting right now like hunger and stress and fatigue. Making sure we're all taken care of.
There are some medical professionals who pulled off some absolutely A+ work today and I am so, so grateful to them.
I'm on my way to see Heather today. We spoke earlier this morning. Her assessment of this situation is that it sucks, and furthermore she is pissed off at all the people who aren't wearing masks.
I'm in the room with her now and we're catching up on everything :)
Her speech is completely normal and she's just as communicative and lucid as ever. There's some numbness in one leg that they're working to figure out but they say it's possible that this will recover; she can still move it normally.
Her blood pressure is normal again. She was able to sit up and stand up with a walker :)
This is me keeping my cat calm this morning because he is stressed and knows something is up
I'm going to have to leave for the night soon but I'm going to be back first thing tomorrow. They said if I arrive right at the opening I can catch first rounds and hear the scoop on everything from everyone who's worked on her. It was so, so good to see her today.
Heather started showing symptoms again this morning and was unable to speak. They did a scan and found a buildup of more blood clots and they're taking her in for another procedure to clear those. It's going to take several hours and we should be able to see her later today.
I would really, really appreciate any positive thoughts for a good outcome here, because I'm scared out of my wits.
Her surgeon did say that the odds are much better today than they were on Sunday.
