The ups and downs of life: Part 2

Lives can change in a heart beat

I'm travelling back in time to Monday 17 June... a few weeks ago.

Mr P, my Dad, rang me around lunch-time.

He hadn't had a good night, was very restless.

He was going to bed for a sleep...most unusual for him so my "What's up?" antenna

was quivering. He also wasn't going to see Mrs P as he usually does.

I tried to get more info out of him but he didn't give out much!

I asked him to please call me in the evening.

Around 7pm he called back, felt a bit more rested but still not that great.

After around 5mins of talking to me he said....

"I'm not sure but I think I might have had a little stroke"

I replied I was coming and picking him up and taking him to the after hrs Dr!

Mr P didn't think that was necessary.

I replied it most definitely was!

So off I went.

Subtle changes, if you didn't know him well you may not have known.

His speech was a little slurred, his thinking a little slower,

he'd found a few things difficult to do with his right hand.

E.g. cutting an onion, peeling the skin off his boiled potatoes for his tea.

All of these he'd noticed all day long....

but doesn't let me know!

When we got out of the van I noticed he was hardly using his right arm.

When I queried it he said it was quite sore but,

"Maybe it's my arthritis"

He could hardly hold a pen to sign his name, which was basically illegible,

usually it's easy to read.

Thankfully we didn't have too long to wait to see the doctor.

She looked him over, asked him a heap of questions,

obviously from a stroke assessment tool on the computer as she kept referring to the screen.

She didn't seem to think he was too bad!

No, this wasn't a stroke with severe effects but a stroke is a stroke!

One of the things he had to do was draw a clock face.

He did ok but for him it was really untidy.

"Oh, that's quite good!" she stated.

"Not for him!" I replied

He had to spell "World" forwards...then backwards.

Forwards he did fine.

Backwards he had two goes and got it wrong both times.

"Would he normally be able to....?"she asked

"Yes, he does cryptic crosswords!" I stated.

I was getting a bit annoyed...

No, he may not be paralysed on one side...but something is going on!

He has had a stroke.

Thankfully she decided to ring the medical registrar at the hospital.

I guess with small effects from a stroke it can be hard to tell.

The med reg got her to do a few other simple tests with Mr P and.....

we were off to the Emergency Department.

If he had have been sent home by the Doc I would have ignored that and taken him to the Emergency Department anyway!

There are times having trained as a registered nurse stands me in good stead.

This was one of them as I knew he needed the hospital..and most likely admitting.

He was assessed by the triage nurse...then some more waiting in the waiting area.

They have a new system at Wellington Hospital

Sometimes instead of going through the ED a patient is admitted to MAPU

(Medical Assessment and Planning Unit)

This is what happened with Mr P.

So sometime overnight on Sunday/Monday

a clot from somewhere travelled to his brain...and a part of it died.

And his life was changed irrevocably.

Up till now he has been living independently, slowly sorting things from almost 58yrs of being in his own home prior to moving in with us.

He had spoken with me a couple of weeks earlier and commented on the cold.

I replied that we thought he was going to be with us by winter.

"Oh, I'll just sort a bit more of this up...but if my health changes..."

"You'll move in with us." I stated.

"Yes" he said.

One of the things that has changed is that he has lost the use of his driving licence.

For up to a year.

A huge loss of independence.

So by around 1am on Tuesday morning he was all tucked up in a bed.

I wended my way home around 2am, I think, as I waited till he'd been seen by the Medical Registrar and it was comfirmed he would have a scan in the morning.

I'd sent texts to my sis and 2 bros earlier to let them know what was happening and that I'd update them in the morning.

Home to bed for a few hours before I returned to the hospital the next day.

We've been through this before with Mrs P, though her strokes were worse.

Thankfully Mr P's hasn't been too debilitating physically...at least so far.