It is Sunday again. I am home. Rose is back at college. It is like last week never happened. Ian came and went without us. We were busy with our own personal disaster.
Being in the hospital is like time-traveling. Everything else disappears. All your focus is on the problem. All other issues are put away for another day, after the emergency is over. Nothing else matters.
The trouble last Sunday night was not a seizure. It was a stroke. Rose had a stoke in her dorm room. She is 29 years old.
She was transported to the local hospital where she was diagnosed and given the clot-buster, tPA. Then she was transported to a big, wonderful hospital. This is where the hole in her heart was discovered. It has been there since birth(a PFO) but decided to sling a clot through it on Sunday night.
Rose rapidly improved after the tPA. No one could notice anything abnormal except her speech is slower and she has trouble finding words. She has regained all functions on her left side. She is left-handed.
Last week’s schedule was as follows: Sunday= stroke around 8PM. Monday= tests and scans. Tuesday= more tests and scans. Wednesday= plans for future treatments and appointments made with specialists. Thursday= released from hospital, keep Rose with us in hotel and do her laundry. Friday= take things back to college but keep Rose with us as we stay in a different hotel near the school. Saturday= drive home without Rose. REALLY?
Did all this really happen? Was it really just a nightmare? Did I time-travel? I wish this were fiction and it was all a bad dream, but no. It all really happened.
Now, I am home alone, puttering around catching up on laundry and tossing old food from the refrigerator. A week was stolen by a stroke and a clot and a hole in a heart. This will be repaired soon. We feel lucky. Rose had help arrive at every turn. I say they were angels.
Now, we are all supposed to carry on like this trauma did not happen. Her dad is back at work. I am walking around in my “Mama Fog” trying to function.
Rose called today. She talked more slowly. I put my cell phone in my pocket on speaker and folded laundry as she talked.
She says she is keeping a bag packed and ready by her door in case anything else happens. (Like an expectant mother.)
This is who Rose is. A future Emergency and Disaster Management professional prepared for her next, personal emergency.
Proud, Grateful and Lucky Mama
Seizure Mama and Rose 