Thanks for stopping by my home page.
I would like to share my story about my stroke I had on November 17, 1997. I am now 43 and I was 41 when I had my stroke that changed the course of my life. I thought I kept myself in pretty good shape, I never could imagine myself having a stroke, but we never know what is in store with our lives. I have a motto now and this is it:
"Live life to the fullest each day cause you never know if tomorrow will come".

For about a week before my stroke I felt like I had the flu, I felt weak but not really sick. On the morning of November 17, 1997, it was a normal morning for me of getting up and having my morning cup of coffee and I felt fine. I left for work about 6:30 AM and got to where I was working just fine. I was working for a landscape company as a working landscape construction supervisor. I really loved my work that I was doing. At around 8:30 my equilibrium was quite bad and I felt really dizzy. I thought it was just my ears plugging up cause sometimes when it does that I get dizzy for a couple of minutes then it goes away. I sat down where I was and knew something was terribly wrong cause the dizziness was not going away and all of a sudden my whole right side went limp, my right vision was blurred, and I was having trouble swallowing. I am usually by myself doing repairs but thank God I was working with two other coworkers that day. One of my coworkers noticed me on the ground and asked if I needed to go to the hospital. When I could finally get the words out I said "I think so". It took both coworkers to carry me to my truck cause I could not walk. I am very thankful to the quick thinking of my coworker, he tried to call for an ambulance but was having trouble getting the address of where we were at. So he drove me to the hospital in my truck instead of waiting for the ambulance. His quick thinking of getting me to the hospital and my muscle tone is what the doctors say prevented me form having complete damage to my right side from my stroke. The doctors did several test on me, but did not find anything till the next morning. After an MRI scan was done they found two blood clots at the base of my brain stem. The doctors at my local hospital decided to send me to Standford University Medical Center, after a four hour ambulance ride I arrived there around 11:30 PM on November 19, 1997. The next morning a feeding tube was placed up my nose that went down to my stomach, cause I could not swallow and that was the only way they could feed me. I could not even swallow my own saliva and had to use a vacuum to empty my mouth out. An angiogram was performed on me, but thank God again that the doctors decided to try me on coumadin instead of placing a spring or balloon in the artery. From there I was transferred to the Rehabilitation Unit in another part of the hospital. I spent the next 14 days there. After my third day there I told the nurses to get the wheel chair out of my room and that I was to young and ambitious to be in a wheel chair. After about a week and a half I could swallow again. With the nurses and therapist help they kept my spirits up and we did alot of hard therapy and I was able to walk by the time I left the hospital on December 4th.
After six months of taking the coumadin my clots cleared up. But I lost the feeling of hot and cold sensations from chest high down to my toes on my right side. My vision is better but I still have a spot in my vision in my right eye and my whole right side burns 24 hours a day like my blood is on fire. I have learned to kind of tolerate it cause my doctor has tried four different drugs but none have seem to help. Sometimes at night when the burning is bad I have to take a sleeping pill (10 mg of ambien) to sleep.
I could not return to my landscaping job due to a lost in energy when I try to excerpt any physical labor. But I have been attending college under a Vocational Retraining and learning computer programming, configuration and repair. I am really enjoying learning my new field. I have always hit any challenge head on and to me my stroke is one that needed a whole new thought process. I have a long way to go but I will accept and go on.
Thank you for reading and listening to my story.
Sincerely,
Richard

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