Water Dog? Not So Much

On our walk Sunday morning in St Ferdinand Park, a group of ducks and ducklings waddled over to the fishing lake and plunged in rather than risk facing Daisy the Golden Puppy. They chose the perfect escape, because, in spite of her retriever lineage, Daisy hates water and avoids it like the plague! The best she could do was stand at the edge of the lake and look wistfully out at the quackers. It's probably just as well.

Now THIS is Retirement! or, How I Tested My Heart, Blood Pressure, and Pulse Rate

I attended a Father's Day party at my Pop's retirement community today, and got more than my money's worth. Besides the BBQ ribs and cheesecake, there was also live entertainment in the form of a belly dancer. I have to admit, I was expecting a 90-year-old in a moo-moo, but I was pleasantly surprised when the shindig started. The funniest part was that while a shapely, half-naked girl was twirling in front of them, most of the old codgers weren't even aware of what was going on. They didn't even notice when she danced with a sword balanced on her head! Oh well, I guess it still beats being on oxygen in the nursing home.

Don't Eat Quackers in Bed

This seems to be the week for wildlife! On Friday morning, about 6:30 a.m., Daisy the Golden and yours truly were at St Ferdinand Park in Florissant when we came across this family gathering of ducks and ducklings. Daisy was very good and didn't ty to terrorize them, but Mom and Pop Duck moved the little quackers to the pond shortly after just to be sure.

Daisy and the Turtle

Today was wildlife day at Sunset Park in Florissant. Daisy the Crazy Golden Retriever and I were out on a morning stroll a little before 6 a.m., and the entire area was alive with rabbits, squirrels, geese, and one critter we hadn't come across before. We were almost done with our walk when Daisy spotted a turtle sunning himself in the grass. His head was stretched out on his neck as far as it would go, but he quickly withdrew to his shell as the very excited pup raced up to him. He refused to come back out, so I was slowly able to coax Daisy away from him and let him go back about his business. Daisy really wanted to get nose to nose, so I'm glad he wasn't a snapper.

Physical Therapy

OK, so I've alluded to the fact that I've made some strides in recovering from my recent stroke. My neurologist feels I've improved as well, but decided to send me to physical therapy to work on my balance, and, hopefully, help strengthen my left arm and leg. She was also concerned that one leg was shorter than the other, and that it was contributing to my sometimes unsteady gait.

Luckily, my therapist was very laid-back and took a common-sense approach to my rehab. He explained that recovery was best served by first making sure I didn't fall and injure myself further. He also reassured me that my legs were both the same length. He designed some exercises to help my balance and strengthen my back, hips and legs. As I walked out on my first day, I thought rehab would be a cinch since the exercises were so simple. Simple didn't turn out to mean easy.

First, I overestimated my physical condition. Just a few weeks of inactivity, and a small stroke, had really reduced my strength. The exercises took only a little over half-an-hour to complete, but by the end I was pretty worn out. Is this the same guy who could bench press 200 pounds not all that long ago? I was now a 230-pund wimp.

Secondy, several of the exercises require me to lie on the floor. Not bad in itself, but as soon as I started, Daisy the 75-pound Golden Retriever decided I was inviting her to play. The whole time I was working one leg or arm, I was trying to arm wrestle a hairy version of Hulk Hogan with the other! The more I pushed her away, the more she charged back for more. By the time I finished, I was covered with sweat, fur, and dog slobber. Somehow, I don't think this is what my doctor had in mind when she said I needed some help in getting back to 100%.

The last part of my routine involves walking heel to toe and alternate high-stepping. To get enough room, and have a wall to help balance me, I moved outside along the side of the house on our carport. The whole time, I could imagine the other folks on the street wondering why their crazy neighbor was goose-stepping up and down his driveway like the Waffen SS.

By the time I finish rehab, we'll probably have to move.


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On the Road to Recovery?

Well, it's been a month since I suffered a brain injury due to stroke, and I guess it's time to pause and figure out where I started from and where I'm headed.

Four weeks ago, the left side of my body (really, it's as if someone drew a line straight down the middle, from the top of my head to the bottom of my feet!) was numb, my left arm was pretty much paralyzed, and my left leg was so weak I had to lift it into bed or into the car by using my right arm. To walk, I had to either hold onto someone else, or use a cane to keep from falling (which I did, spectacularly I might add, on several occassions).

Nightime bathroom excursions were pretty crazy, as I tried to get out of bed, navigate to the bathroom, and then find my way back to bed without falling, running into the wall, or bouncing off the mattress when I collapsed back onto it on my return.

Mrs Merc Man and Daisy the Golden Puppy didn't get much rest, what with catering to my every need or trying to pick me back up off the floor when I didn't quite reach my intended destination. Every teetering journey across a room and every attempt to get out of a chair required them to drop what they were doing and come to my rescue/assistance. On top of being depressed about my illness, I felt bad that I was wearing them out with worry as well. Gimlet, Froggie Girl, and Grandma Gimlet all pitched in to help, and as much as I appreciated all their support, it's tough to see your family stressing themselves with worry over a middle-aged invalid who didn't spend enough time taking care of his health. Somehow, I had to get better.

And slowly, things have gotten better. My left leg still wants to drag and/or turn under when I walk too much, but I can actually flex my ankle now and I haven't kissed the concrete in a couple of weeks. My left hand is no longer drawn into a claw, and I can actually grasp and hold things with it. I actually applied deodorant to my own underarms recently, and the improvement in the household atmosphere is akin to the sweet smell of success!

The left-side numbness is beginning to resolve, although it's replaced by a tingling, wake-up-from-sleep kind of pins and needles that feels just plain creepy.

The biggest pain is the overall feeling of exhaustion I've had since my illness. Simple tasks completely wear me out; just cleaning up can leave me wiped out for a couple hours.

So far, I'd give my recovery a score of C. I'm much improved over the last four weeks, but I still have a long road ahead. Unfortunately, the road is not lined with comfy couches, golden arches and ice cream sandwiches. Couldn't I just be 25 again? 35? 45? Hell, 55!

You Can Eat All the Green Vegetables You Want.....Gee, Thanks!

A big part of my wake-up call after suffering a stroke was having to accept the fact that I was going to have to change my diet. Fast food burgers, pizza, and the multitude of sundaes, sub sandwiches, etc, etc, that I dearly loved were now verboten if I was going to avoid diabetes.

Having high blood pressure, I also needed to eliminate as much salt from my diet as well, and I quickly became obsessed with reading food lables to try and find something that was good for me and also tasted like food instead of cardboard. Let me tell you, it don't come easy.

Nutrtion websites proclaim loudly that you can eat all the vegetables you want and still have a healthy body. Problem is, at least to me, is that I have yet to meet a carrot that tastes like french fries or a monster pizza. Even a bargain brand ice cream beats broccoli hands down, unless the green stuff is smothered with melted Velveeta.

Then there's the no-salt thing. I never realized how much of a salt-o-holic I was until I started doing without, and with the amount of sodium loaded into almost every prepared food, canned vegetable, bakery goods, etc, it's really hard to avoid overload. Even my favorite frozen pancakes hold more salt than the Dead Sea!

At the beginning of my quest to eat better, I thought the biggest challenge would be controlling calories. At 6 feet tall, I weighed 240 pounds the day I came home from the horse-pital (just some equine humor--it's close to the day of the Preakness), so to reach my ideal weight I needed to shed some 60 pounds of "relaxed muscle". After eliminating carbs (sugar and those foods easily converted to sugar in the human body), and salt, I wasn't going to have to do much calculating to control calories. In 3 weeks, I lost 8 pounds, and with what I've been eating, I don't miss food all that much. Eating to live is a great slogan, but a lousy aperitif.

All in all, I have to admit that my diet is a lot healthier today than it was before my brain exploded, but I'm hoping some lonely scientist somewhere is on the verge of discovering a pill that gives one the metabolism of a hummingbird and the blood vessels of a giraffe. You see tadpole, because of their looong necks, giraffes have very high blood presure to shoot blood all the way up to their pointy little heads.

In spite of all that pressure, they suffer no ill effects. Go Tarzan!!!!

Ahhh...the New Packard We've Heard So Much About

I read in the paper that Obama Motors (the car compny formerly known as GM) may import cars from China as part of its future comeback strategy. That got me wondering; how in the world can you be sure the car you're buying is really 100% American made?

Then it hit me! With Obama opening up Cuba to American tourists, why not allow us to buy up all those old, pre-Glorious Revolution vehicles caught in that time-warp in the Carribean?

Si se pude!(yes, we can!)

Drugs for the Drug Rep

As part of the hospitalization after my recent stroke (or CVA--cerebrovascular accident), my cholesterol levels (LDL-180, HDL-39, TGs-116) and blood pressure were found to be high. I was also checked for diabetes, and although my HbA1c (6.1) didn't classify me as a full-blown diabetic, it wasn't low enough to let me follow any diet I wanted.

Part of my discharge paperwork included prescriptions for Toprol XL 50mg/day for blood pressure, Lipitor 20mg/day for cholesterol, and Aggrenox 25mg/200mg/day to prevent blood clots. In the space of one week, I had gone from taking Prilosec OTC for occasional heartburn, along with the intermittent aspirin or allergy med, to becoming a walking advertisement for the pharmaceutical industry.

Everything was proceeding without fanfare until I developed an allergic reaction to the Aggrenox. Being the type of guy who can't follow convention, I didn't get the common side affect of headache. Instead, I broke out in hives, my lips swelled, and I got short of breath. For a moment, I marvelled at the irony of surviving a brain injury only to die from a medication reaction. After the episode passed, I called my doctor and ended up on the cutting-edge medicine called aspirin. Why didn't they think of that the first go-round?

As a drug rep, part of my job is to explain to physicians why the meds I represent are important, what type of conditions they treat, and provide infomation re side affects. It always bothered me that doctors would be reluctant to prescribe a drug a patient really needed because of concerns about side affects. In my mind, the benefit of preventing a heart attack (or stroke), far outweighed worries about a headache or upset tummy. Now that I was on the other side of the debate, I better understood the impact adverse events have on patients.

Lots of people end up on lots of medications, and every additional agent adds another risk of reaction, not to mention interaction with other meds. Patients who suffer a severe reaction may end up stopping all their teatments, especially when it plays to the human desire to ignore health problems in the hope they'll go away on thir own.

In my case, my numb left side, and limp left arm and leg were constant reminders of what had happened to me, and were ominous indications of what lay ahead if I didn't change my ways. So I'm taking my meds, praying they'll do their job, and thanking God someone was smart enough to invent them and give me the chance to avoid another event.

As for the HbA1c level, I was going to have to improve my diet to keep from progressing on to full-blown diabetes. But that's a whole story unto itself.

The "Home" Front

After spending a very long, sleepless Thursday night in the hospital, it was great to be back home with Mrs MercMan, Daisy the Golden Puppy, and Grandma Gimlet, who graciously offered to stay over and help us out during my fall from good health. I ate the best dinner ever and slept the sleep of the saved in my own comfy bed.

Saturday went pretty well, considering I was still awfully shaky on my feet and my left arm was darn near useless AND numb. I felt good enough on Sunday that Grandma was able to go home herself when Mrs MercMan's brother John came by to visit in the p.m. I guess I should have known that my recovery wasn't going to happen overnight, but such are the dreams of fools and the recently injured.

Monday morning, I got out of bed and limped into the living room to turn off the outside light and open the front window curtains. I had just flipped off the light switch and started to back away from the front door when I lost my balance and collapsed onto the floor. Next thing I knew, I had 75 pounds of Golden Retriever licking my face while I tried to figure out how I was going to get back upright. With Mrs MercMan's help, I finally got back on my feet and scuttled to the kitchen to lick my wounds and have breakfast.

After eating, I went to the bathroom, where I decided I should get cleaned up by taking a bath. You can probably see wht's coming. In spite of having just fallen after merely backing up, how am I ever going to be able to get in and out of a bathtub, especially with a game arm? Exactly. I was able to lower into the tub just fine, but after washing off, the real dilemma came when I tried to push myself up on the side of the tub. I was able to get my good leg under me, but when I tried to balance with my left, I toppled over the edge of the tub and crashed heavily onto my left side on the bathroom floor, just missing the vanity's sharp edges and still clutching the soap dish I had pulled off the wall in a futile attempt to arrest my spill. As I lay dazed and embarrassed on the floor of our teeny tiny bathroom, Mrs MercMan and the aforementioned puppy tried to open the door without smacking me in the head! Except for the pain, cursing, and damaged fixtures, it was like a scene from some slapstick comedy. By Monday evening, I had some vicious-looking bruises and was convinced I was bound to be permanently disabled if I didn't knock my brains out the first week I was home.

So far, my return to North County was less than a triumph.

The Hospital Stay

Once I had been diagnosed with a stroke, the hospital wasn't about to give me a couple aspirins and send me on my way. As a result, I spent a night in the hospital while undergoing some diagnostic tests to determine what caused the event to happen. This was my first overnight in a hospital since the day I was born, so I got to experience a whole bunch of "hospitalisms".

First off, there's no such thing as "hurry" in hospital lingo. Mostly, you lie in a very uncomfortable hospital bed while a parade of doctors, nurses, residents, and God knows who else come by to poke, prod, and take blood samples. This is epecially true during the night, when someone comes by every 3 or 4 hours to take temperature and blood pressure readings. In my case, my roomate and I had different teams caring for us, so we got double the number of visits day and night. Our room was right across from the nurses station, so we also heard every phone call, dropped clipboard, and loud conversation from the phalanx of nurses staffing the floor. Needless to say, we didn't get much shut-eye, and even when we did manage to fall asleep, someone came by to shake us and ask us for our name and date of birth.

Next, I learned that once you're a captive audience, doctors are going to run every test they can charge to your bill, usually without telling you in advance. You may be just starting to eat your imitation salisbury steak after fasting the last 16 hours, but if an order comes down for an ultrasound, MRI, or CT scan at the same time, you better hope the nurses will smuggle you in a sandwich when you finally get back to your room later in the evening.

Finally, once they decide to discharge you, all the attention stops. Don't get me wrong, I was ecstatic when I learned I was going home, but I left with a whimper, not a bang. My nurse had just gotten a bouquet of flowers delivered to the floor, so she ran into my room, rattled off my discharge instructions, and disappeared, leaving me pretty much on my own. I didn't even get my wheelchair ride to the curb. I limped my way down to the parking lot, dragging my left foot behind me while trying not to fall. If it hadn't been for Mrs MercMan, I'd probably still be sitting on a bench somewhere on the hospital campus! By the time we got back to the house, I was feeling pretty sorry for myself in addition to being totally wiped out. The one silver lining to the whole mess is my determination to get better and work hard to make sure this never happens again.

CVA--From ER to Recovery

Easter 2009 started out as a great weekend. I took Good Friday off, and spent the day relaxing with Mrs MercMan and Daisy the Golden Retriever. I even got to do a little woodworking, building a chinchilla bed for one of Gimlet and Froggie Girl's "doodles". We won't mention that I built it to the wrong specs, but it all turned out OK.
Easter Sunday, I enjoyed visiting with family and savoring our holiday meal. The only fly in the ointment was a little numbness in my left hand, which I wrote off to all the yard work/gutter cleaning from the day before.
Monday, I noticed I was also having a little trouble with my left ankle, which I again brushed off as hangover from the weekend. By Wednesday, though, I was limping badly, my left arm was now really numb, and I was unsteady on my feet. Finally, come Thursday morning, April 16, 2009, Mrs MercMan drove me to the Emergency Room of an area hospital and I was diagnosed with a "mild" stroke (or, as the medical folks call it, a cerebrovascular accident, or CVA). At 56, I got a wake-up call that I never saw coming. So much for over-confidence!
I've decided to document my experience, both to track my own recovery, and, hopefully, help someone else avoid my mistakes.