Back in 2011, I wrote this story (my personal best as far as I’m concerned in my 18 years here at DK) Anti-GBCW right after I got home after being released from the hospital after suffering an Acute MI (heart attack). The reason I wrote the story is because of the KIND of heart attack I had and what likely contributed to it: I had a 100% occluded (blocked) descending artery, left which in common parlance means I had a “widowmaker” heart attack and if it hadn’t happened after I got to the emergency room back in 2011, I wouldn’t be here today. I would likely have simply fallen down dead.
Every day since I have viewed as “extra” time. Time I wouldn’t have gotten if it had happened anywhere outside of a hospital. My cardiac situation has been managed pretty well since then, and I’ve never even had to take any nitroglycerin tabs for chest pain or shortness of breath.
Until this past week.
Woke up Saturday morning with vertigo from hell, move my head a millimeter and the entire room was spinning. It had happened once before about a year ago, but the vertigo passed in minutes and my primary care doctor felt it was a nominal event and just to watch for the vertigo symptoms again and call the advice nurse if it came back for more than just a couple minutes.
But on Saturday, it just didn’t stop. Within minutes of it presenting, I became extremely nauseated and commenced vomiting, which also just did not stop. So by late afternoon, I called the advice nurse (bad on me, I should have called within five minutes of it starting). They put me on hold for 30 seconds and the ER attending doctor picks up the phone to say, “How fast can you get to the ER?”
Luckily my youngest child lives within 10 mins of my house and arrived shortly to take me to the local hospital ER dept. They triaged me right away because my symptoms — vertigio/head spins and vomiting — were possible stroke symptoms!
I had a CT of the head, blood draws for other possible causes like Troponin (a sign that you have already had or are having a heart attack). The CT seemed to show I wasn’t having or recently had a stroke, but the attending doctor explained that CT can show strokes but often can’t give enough detailed data to confirm or deny the diagnosis.
By that time with medications they were able to stop the vomiting and the head spins faded, too… until Kaiser Permanent declined allowing me to be admitted to a non-Kaiser hospital. So an ambulance fetched me and drove me FORTY MINUTES to a KP hospital across the river into Oregon and by the time we arrived there, the vomiting and vertigo was back in full force. That continued for about 3 hours.
By which time I was ready to lose my mind. Anyone who has gotten so drunk they got the head spins knows what the feeling is like; except in that case you get the spins, you vomit up EVERYTHING and the head spins stop. But when it has gone on for hours? Nothing like it for agony.
The next day (Sunday) I had an MRI which absolutely confirmed I had not just one “small” stroke but multiple (small) strokes.
This is the finding of the MRI:
BRAIN: Multiple linear and wedge-shaped foci of restricted diffusion in the inferomedial left cerebellar hemisphere, with associated T2/FLAIR hyperintense signal. Additional punctate focus of restricted diffusion in the right aspect of the uvula/vermis. Several small T2 hyperintense foci within the supratentorial white matter, nonspecific but most likely reflecting mild chronic microvascular ischemia. No acute hemorrhage or mass displacing intra-axial lesion.
and the conclusions after the radiologist read the MRI
1. Multiple acute infarcts in the left cerebellum. 2. Punctate acute infarct in the right cerebellar vermis. 3. No evidence of acute hemorrhage. 4. Diminutive right intradural vertebral artery flow void, may reflect underlying stenosis.
And I walked out of the hospital this evening without a single affect/deficit. All limbs function as they should, my vision has not been affected, no drooping of facial muscles, no trouble swallowing or eating. It’s almost like I didn’t really have a stroke, even though I know that I did.
Two of the biggest medical killers and I survived BOTH of them in the past 11 years, with little to no consequences (other than lifestyle changes to avoid having them again).
I used to think I was the unluckiest person alive, but as it turns out, perhaps I am the luckiest person alive.
All of which is to say THANK GOD for Medicare (which limits my responsible part of the bill to under $1000 for the Kaiser hospital and about $200 to the ER hospital I went to first) and the ACA and the hospital staff who were so very kind and caring during both of my hospitalizations.
Don’t let this happen to you, maintain a healthier lifestyle, get enough exercise and eat the right kinds of food, whenever possible.
If you should ever wake with severe vertigo which doesn’t stop within an hour? Get to the closest Emergency Department as quickly as you can. It may just be an inner ear problem causing the Vertigo, but it could be a stroke.