One, Two, Three Strokes, you’re out at the ol’ ball game.

Port Townsend, WA, 8-May-2023 – Today feels like it is the end of the day that happened. But it’s not. That day was six days ago.

I remember sleeping much closer to Jennifer than I normally did, she was comfortable and quite warm. She had her hand on me, across my shoulders, then it felt a little uncomfortable. I also felt I needed to go to the bathroom.

Jennifer’d been gone for days, and I had been gone for weeks prior to that, so we hadn’t seen each other much in the last two months. It was nice to have her near, and very comforting that she should put her arm around me when she was sleeping. I scooted over leftward to the edge of the bed. She must’ve been closer than I thought because I could still feel her hand on me.

I went to get up and just fell straight onto the floor. It took a little while to figure out what was going on; I hadn’t completely thought it through. I was on the floor and I could feel Jennifer’s hand on me.

I started to figure out that it wasn’t Jennifer’s hand, that it was my hand. I could see it. And there was nothing I could do to move it, but I also knew my real hand was moving around easily as it should have. By now Jennifer was out walking around the bed towards me. She asked me what happened and when I went to reply only the individual, single words would come out. I knew I had a stroke.

She tried to get me onto the bed. I was on the floor propped up on my right side, but completely unable to stand as someone had flipped a switch and turned my right side off. Along with, as everyone’s probably aware, my speech.

Jennifer was asking if she should call an ambulance, and I was thinking no, we should just get a car and drive me. But it became apparent I could not get on the bed, and Jennifer could not lift me. I still couldn’t speak.

She dialed 911 and spoke to the people there. I must’ve been dozing in and out because there were two men in the bedroom with me very quickly. It’s not a very big town, so I suppose they could have been there very quickly and I was not asleep. In a few moments, they said they needed more people, and that they would get a helicopter to fly me to Seattle to the stroke center.

I heard them confer with Jennifer about what the best way was to get me out. There are stairs out the front door, and two stairs out the back, both of those exits require a lot of maneuvering: tables in the way, and narrow hallways leading into the laundry room into the back yard.

I don’t remember her pausing, but I do remember giving instructions to take me out across the bedroom deck down one step and then ramp up to where anyone comes to the house is parked.

Emergency workers slid a cloth of some sort underneath me, and the four of them picked me up and lifted me onto a stretcher. We went out through the patio, down the stairs, up the ramp, and into something which seemed to be an ambulance, maybe it was something larger than the standard ambulance, and I went.

Was I drifting? Is my memory missing from those minutes?

Jennifer said they told her that there would be a helicopter at the Port Townsend Airport in 17 minutes.

Again, I can’t tell you whether I was drifting in and out, or I have just lost memories. There were two women working the helicopter. They were very competent and made me feel safe. I don’t think I slept at all on the helicopter, but maybe I did. It seemed the amount of time that we took to get to Harborview Medical Center was more than 17 minutes, so perhaps I was winking in and out and thinking that I had slept for a while.

We landed and people came and got me. I don’t remember the people well, and I don’t remember how many there were, but they put me on a stretcher and waltzed me through the hospital’s entrails explaining to me that they were going to try and undo the effects of the stroke.

The doctor asked me if it was okay if he were to give me a blockbuster shot that would break up any clots that have formed. It was quite certain that I had clots rather than a bleed, but it was possible he could be wrong. Did I want him to do it anyway? I’m not sure what I said. In my memory, I thought I told him yes. He seemed to understand, and I remember him injecting me.

I spoke, no, that’s not right, the anesthesiologist spoke to me and told me he would put me out. Would that be okay? I remember telling him yes it would be fine. But could I have?

Another doctor asked something about who had the consent documents to allow them to work on me. I remember telling him that Jennifer had, and he said that Jennifer wasn’t my wife, correct? I don’t remember much after that.

Then, I was in a hospital bed, in the room and I was speaking with someone and it was as if nothing happened, just a bad dream.

I had trouble remembering the words I wanted, and occasionally I would say the wrong ones. But that passed. I was only in the hospital for three days: the day I arrived, the next day when they planned to send me home, and one additional day we stayed to check a few things out.

It seems as though this happened because my heart has gotten worse. My irregular heartbeat has transitioned from something not very dangerous to something that is dangerous enough to have a name. It’s not constant, it happened this time for long enough to form clots, and that makes all the difference.

No one believes it will happen again, but it might. Everyone believes I should go sailing, and I will. I further believe I should stay put for a month so that all medicines are in place before heading north.

I’ll take this time to do the writing I’ve been putting off, and to enjoy parts of Port Townsend we don’t normally see.

Thank you, everyone, for reading this, and for caring about me.

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It’s been two days since I wrote that. I’ve seen additional doctors, the words which used to escape me have been wrangled back into their corral. Bruises that were barely visible have returned, darkly colorful, no blues, just dark blacks. The blues and other colors will appear in time. We’ve canceled the flights to Homer, and planning a new, shorter trip. Today, I get my meds lined up for the short term and start to figure out what the longer term looks like.

Yesterday we spent visiting a cardio doctor in Edmonds. I wonder if the nurse who set this up for me chose this really good doctor, or whether it was just luck of the draw. His name is B. Fendley Stewart, and he was everything I could have wanted in an MD. I’m happy. Dr. Stewart keeps some appointments reserved at the beginning of the day for things that don’t fit into the normal day. I don’t know if they are available for everyone to see, or if she, somehow, just knew that this person was the right person for me. But I have a good cardio guy.

Next week I see someone in a family practice and then I am set for doctors. This is a bit of a letdown: I prided myself on never needing doctors, never needing long-term medication, but now, I am like most of the world. However, if the days and people and time had been different, I wouldn’t be here to complain, or perhaps would have been here, but could not have complained.

All of Caro Babbo still awaits my hands. Everything that was to be done still awaits. Because I live with who I live and in the time I live, I still can do it all. For this, I give m my greatest thanks.

I will finish the post I almost finished last Tuesday when I stroked. I hope you still like it.