Let me tell you all the story of a man named Davey… (with apologies to Charlie and the MTA)
I was working from home on Tuesday, and after a nice lunch with my wife, something strange happened. As we were sitting there, calmly talking my vision split into two, like I was going cross eyed.
That was startling, but then something scary happened. I was looking right at Bobbi, asking her if my eyes were crossing. She said that they were not moving at all. As I listened to her, the left hand image of Bobbi moved from 9 o’clock in my field of vision up to 1 o’clock, and the right hand image of Bobbi at 3 o’clock moved down to 7 o’clock. It stayed this way for about 5 minutes, and then my vision returned to normal.
It thought it was just weird, but Bobbi, being the wise woman she is, got on the internet and read me information about what could cause my vision to go wacko, most of which concerned a stroke or maybe a mini-stroke. At first I was skeptical, but after I was hit with a bout of dizziness, I agreed that we should go to the ER and get me checked out.
We drove to the emergency room in Clinton (MA) hospital, and the swept me right in and started to work on me. They took all my vitals, took some blood for testing, and figured that they needed to look inside my head. Luckily these days they can do this without cracking your skull, but since the CT machine at the hospital was down for repairs, they sent my by ambulance to the hospital in Leominster MA.
There they gave me two CT scans of my head and neck, the second with “contrast” that let them see more details of how the blood was flowing in my brain. They had an idea of what might have happened, and gave me a baby aspirin to help slow the clotting process. They admitted me for overnight observation, and gave me an MRI scan the next day. The results of all of these tests were that I had no visible damage to the brain, but that I had had a Transient Ischemic Events (TIA). That is a stroke that starves a part of your brain of blood for a while, but then the “clog” apparently clears.
This is not “all over now” because this TIA can be a warning of an underlying problem, or a precursor to a full blown stroke. I’m taking a couple of days off, and will not be traveling to Brazil this weekend for business. The business meeting was cancelled because I could not attend, but I feel good enough to go back to work in my home office this Monday.
I have cut way back on the caffeine, and I’m hoping to eliminate it all together. I have a follow-up with the neurologist and an appointment with a cardiologist to check me out for those vascular related things that can lead to the blood clots. The good news is that my cholesterol is excellent, my blood pressure is in the right zone, and all of the walking, yoga, and dancing that I am doing is “just what the doctor ordered.”
So, let me be a cautionary tale about strokes. They are not just the big ones where you can’t walk or talk, but can be much smaller, and even go away. These let you know that you are in the danger zone for big ones that can cripple or kill you. So take them all seriously and get checked out!