13 December 2024<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I think I aged four years today. We are both fine, but Kelly was in the ER for four hours today.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
At 10:15 he called me saying something was wrong with his brain. He thought he may have had a stroke or TIA. Immediately in high alert mode, I looked up the acronym for stroke (BE FAST) and ran through the tests\u2014no problems. Calmed a little bit. He was still feeling weird, so we decided to go to Urgent Care.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
He had been in the hot tub and lost some time and realized something was wrong with his brain. This was probably 9 or 9:30. He didn\u2019t know what day it was and didn\u2019t remember getting into the tub. His self-preservation kicked in and he got out of the hot tub very carefully and called me.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
On the way to Urgent Care I got more worried because he repeated a few things he had said just minutes before.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
We went to the top of the triage list and got into a room. Kelly was not quite himself, and was repeating a few phrases over again. Stress levels rising. His blood pressure was 147\/81, but the nurse wasn\u2019t worried since being in there tends to lead to higher blood pressure.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In the ER room, he was using the same phrases and questions over and over. I was keeping track. Within an hour he\u2019d asked \u201cWas I in the hot tub?\u201d over 10 times. \u201cI am so sorry this is so stressful for you.\u201d was over a dozen.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Over the next 3 hours he was on a five-minute loop tape. \u201cWhat happened?\u201d \u201cDid I call you?\u201d \u201cWas I in the hot tub?\u201d \u201cThere is a big hole in my memory.\u201d \u201cI am so sorry this is so stressful for you.\u201d \u201cI feel coherent and lucid now.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I don\u2019t know how many times I answered before I handed him his phone (after about three hours) and told him to write down the answers. Then when he asked again I told him to read.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
It was terrifying. He had no short-term memory for nearly 5 hours. Just a loop tape of the same things over and over. No memory of the two CT scans, of five bathroom visits, three blood draws. I waited in the hall when he went to the bathroom so he wouldn\u2019t be lost wondering where to go when he was done.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I didn\u2019t want to leave to go to the bathroom myself, or get lunch, because he was on such a short loop. He wouldn\u2019t remember that I was there with him. He didn\u2019t know why he was in the hospital. I did eventually run down to the cafeteria for some food. Thank goodness, Mayo has a well-labeled and wide selection of GF food.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
One of the fascinating things about this awful experience was that it was a good peek at his basic personality\u2014very analytical. And uxorious. He had a problem (blank spot in memory) and was analyzing it to try to explain it. And he wanted to reassure me.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The first CT scan came back negative\u2014no stroke. Reassuring, but still, WTF was going on? Second one also negative\u2014no aneurysm. All the blood work looked good. Kelly is disgustingly healthy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
A large part of my terror was not knowing if I would ever get Kelly back again. He has a family history of dementia and strokes. Would he ever get out of this five-minute loop?<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I am going to throw away my copy of 50 First Dates; that would be a PTSD trigger for sure.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Answering the \u201cWas I in the hot tub?\u201d question over and over wasn\u2019t the hard part. It was responding to \u201cI am so sorry this is so stressful for you.\u201d After an hour or so, I just wanted to cry every time he said it. Every five minutes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
At some point I started telling him how many times he had asked a certain question. He managed to shift to occasionally asking \u201cHow many times have I asked XYZ?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
He remembered that we needed to let the county folks know that he was not available. He remembered that we needed to tell his mom.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
At some point, our dear friend Stewart sent me a link to something called \u201cTransient Global Amnesia\u201d. It matched Kelly\u2019s symptoms exactly. I calmed down a lot at that point, since it typically resolved on its own within 24 hours.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
After about five hours of symptoms, he actually remembered what room we were in. (Room #5.) He started remembering to check his phone for answers before asking me questions. Then a few more bits of things he could remember. Then a few more. More personality began to reappear: mostly humor and teasing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The discharge nurse noticed his change in behavior from admittance to discharge. It was significant. Taking off the bandages and electrodes he was joking and making her laugh.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Finally someone came in to go over everything, and we all think it was TGA. It can be triggered by extreme temperature changes. Hot tubbing at 0 deg F would probably count.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I never want to go through this experience again. The websites on TGA mention that it is often harder on the relative\/caregiver. Yeah. Kelly doesn\u2019t remember anything. In the moment, he was pretty cheerful and calm, just a bit irritated to have a big hole in his memory. He won\u2019t remember much of the hospital visit, if anything. That\u2019s probably a blessing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Home again, seven or eight hours after onset, he is still a bit spotty on the short-term memory, but he does remember things now. I sent him downstairs for a pop and some dried mango and he remembered them both.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
There were a few grace notes. Today was a study day at school and I only missed one meeting. On the way to the clinic, Kelly was still worried about stroke and would occasionally blurt out \u201cI don\u2019t have aphasia. I remember the word aphasia.\u201d And once he said \u201csupercalifragilisticexpialidocious\u201d.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
13 December 2024 I think I aged four years today. We are both fine, but Kelly was in the ER for four hours today. At 10:15 he called me saying something was wrong with his brain. He thought he may have had a stroke or TIA. Immediately in high alert mode, I looked up the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_coblocks_attr":"","_coblocks_dimensions":"","_coblocks_responsive_height":"","_coblocks_accordion_ie_support":"","footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-810","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lauramccphd.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/810","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lauramccphd.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lauramccphd.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lauramccphd.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lauramccphd.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=810"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/lauramccphd.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/810\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":811,"href":"https:\/\/lauramccphd.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/810\/revisions\/811"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lauramccphd.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=810"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}