Stroke detection

I've been particularly sick lately. Sometimes I can't even sit up in bed without getting dizzy and throwing up and passing out. This has been going on for at least a week, heading for two. Friday was bad enough that I took some phenergan and then a narcotic (oh so precious few remain) because I was in such terrible pain.

Today is a holiday for my office, Columbus Day so I tried to sleep in. Of course I can't because one of my neighbors appears to be trying to chainsaw his entire house apart and another is working on his car, a surprisingly noisy endeavor even when you don't count the cursing involved. Finally I fell asleep again, despite a nasty headache, despite everything and had a really interesting dream. As I was waking up, I was just dreaming that I was hugely angry, the kind of seeing red, nose bleeding angry that does feel like part of your brain is going to give out, and I was just about to scream really loudly when I woke up to one of these headaches where I feel like my head is nailed to the bed.

I say nailed to the bed not just because it does feel like a giant iron spike through my head but also because it feels impossible to lift my head from the pillow. It really does feel like something big and terrible has stuck my head down permanently. This time the left side of my face was also numb. Not the side that was touching the pillow and could conceivably be numb but the other side. I also had muscle weakness and numbness all down my arm. So I started to wonder if this was it, had I had a *stroke? As I was wondering this and trying to touch my face I suddenly had to pee like mad.

Getting up and getting to the bathroom seemed as likely as sprouting wings and fluttering out my bedroom window but it also seemed like a good diagnostic opportunity. Could I walk? Hell, could I sit up? I could and I staggered into the bathroom. After taking care of urgent business I looked in the mirror. Are my pupils the same size? I can't tell, my eyes are not good enough.

My breathing sounds okay, I haven't got that awful sound that you get from stroke victims. I try and squeeze a wet washcloth, I have some strength in my hands, although they feel weak and debilitated, like all the strength has run out of them, leaving just these shells.

Humans need to be able to communicate, it's intrinsic. We wonder at Helen Keller not just because of her amazing will and the incredible dedication of Ann Sullivan but because she represents something that terrifies us, a person cut off from the world by three of the most important things that make us who we are, the ability to see and learn, the ability to hear and learn and bond and the ability to talk and learn and bond and express what we have learned and become. To imagine being in her shoes, to really feel it, is unbearable.

Can I still communicate? Can I write? Can I talk? I can still hear, I hear a plane that is going to land at BWI but sounds like it is going to crash into my house. I can see, well, as well as I can since I got sick and my eyes started bleeding. But can I communicate? I am afraid to try.

I come back into my room, sink into my bed and pick up the laptop. To most writers and
empty screen is frightening but this is worse than any empty screen I have seen before. This is a screen that represents my ability to still be me. I pull up a screen and I start to type and I see real words and I feel relief (although my head still feels like it is bleeding, bleeding right down my spine as a matter of fact) and realize I have been breathing shallowly and I take a deep, deep breath.

While I am writing, my perception of my headache fades. It's still there, as bad as ever but the drug of writing is working and everything fades a little, everything but the words. At some point Cameron, who is home sick again today, walks in and asks me a question and I respond absently, without even noticing that yes, I can talk. It only sinks in later and I smile a little. I have dodged the bullet again. For now.


*There is a theory that PTC is caused by a series of tiny strokes. Before I got PTC, when I had migraines, which started when I was pregnant with Cullen, the neurologist said much the same thing, that migraines are often because of a series of small strokes. Because I take blood thinners and because my chemistry is odd, my blood levels are all over the map. My bleeding time has been elevated enough that I have had to get transfusions of fresh frozen plasma to bring them down to a better range. It's been high enough that ERA doctors have to sit down when they get the numbers because they have never seen them that high before. It's perfectly possible that I will actually start bleeding in my brain while I sleep. I'm just hoping every night that I won't. I bet it's one reason I have trouble sleeping though.