I had an interesting weekend
Posted: Sun Dec 22, 2024 2:02 pm
It appears that 31 years as a lawyer has been enough to kill a tiny little bit of my brain. The good news is that it also appears that I'm not going to miss the part that's gone AWOL.
I was at the office Friday afternoon preparing to start a reply brief. One of the early steps in my process is writing an outline by hand. I noticed that the pen felt a little clumsy in my hand and my handwriting, while still legible (as legible as it ever is, anyway), was perceptibly altered. And when responding to e-mails, my left thumb (I'm left-handed) was clumsy -- I had to go back more than usual for missed keys and missed spaces.
So I called my doctor and ended up speaking to his triage nurse. The nurse told me to go to the Emergency Room. I went, still thinking that I was just checking a box and this would turn out to be nothing. It turns out, though, that I've had a stroke.
As these things go, I got about as lucky as it's possible to get. Although the stroke was very tiny, if it had occurred in a different area of my brain, I could have faced severe deficits. Instead, I had a slightly clumsy thumb. Even that has now resolved -- the next day my handwriting was as good (or bad) as ever. No other physical impact and no apparent impact on my cognition.
The hospital admitted me to run tests so they could be sure the stroke was due to my blood chemistry (cholesterol and high blood sugar) and hypertension, rather than a more acute problem such as my heart throwing off blood clots. Everything they saw confirmed their initial diagnosis. They discharged me almost exactly 24 hours after I first set foot in the ER.
I'm on a prescription blood thinner for the next 3 months and I'll be taking baby aspirin for the foreseeable future. Obviously I'm going to have to make some changes to my diet, and I'll probably also need to find ways to work some more exercise into my lifestyle.
But all in all, I feel fine. If I hadn't just been to the hospital and had doctors tell me I had a stroke, I wouldn't know anything at all was wrong. I'm cleared to resume normal activities, though I'll take it a little easy at the office for the next couple of days. --Bob
I was at the office Friday afternoon preparing to start a reply brief. One of the early steps in my process is writing an outline by hand. I noticed that the pen felt a little clumsy in my hand and my handwriting, while still legible (as legible as it ever is, anyway), was perceptibly altered. And when responding to e-mails, my left thumb (I'm left-handed) was clumsy -- I had to go back more than usual for missed keys and missed spaces.
So I called my doctor and ended up speaking to his triage nurse. The nurse told me to go to the Emergency Room. I went, still thinking that I was just checking a box and this would turn out to be nothing. It turns out, though, that I've had a stroke.
As these things go, I got about as lucky as it's possible to get. Although the stroke was very tiny, if it had occurred in a different area of my brain, I could have faced severe deficits. Instead, I had a slightly clumsy thumb. Even that has now resolved -- the next day my handwriting was as good (or bad) as ever. No other physical impact and no apparent impact on my cognition.
The hospital admitted me to run tests so they could be sure the stroke was due to my blood chemistry (cholesterol and high blood sugar) and hypertension, rather than a more acute problem such as my heart throwing off blood clots. Everything they saw confirmed their initial diagnosis. They discharged me almost exactly 24 hours after I first set foot in the ER.
I'm on a prescription blood thinner for the next 3 months and I'll be taking baby aspirin for the foreseeable future. Obviously I'm going to have to make some changes to my diet, and I'll probably also need to find ways to work some more exercise into my lifestyle.
But all in all, I feel fine. If I hadn't just been to the hospital and had doctors tell me I had a stroke, I wouldn't know anything at all was wrong. I'm cleared to resume normal activities, though I'll take it a little easy at the office for the next couple of days. --Bob