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Barbara A.  Survivor Middle of the nightFast response by Rapid Response Team saved my lifeI woke up in the middle of the night with a tremendous ache in one eye and I woke my husband and told him "I now know what a poke in the eye feels like" which was a popular saying of one of our sons whenever he was in a fight. It did not hurt "as much as a poke in the eye"...no idea where he got that saying. Anyway in the a.m. I had vertigo, I decided I would eat breakfast and then go to ER. I took one bite of food and it projected back out across the room, then I knew something was wrong. My husband drove me to ER. I was quickly put in a cubicle in the ER. That was Sunday at 9 a.m. I stayed overnight. I refused neck twisting procedure. Monday I was moved to another area in the ER. Tuesday they decided they did not know what was wrong and told my husband I would have to go home. He got the wheelchair, broken hearted as all I had done for 3 days was sleep and ask for cold cloths for my forehead. He got me dressed then he noticed he could not understand something I said and he noticed my mouth drooping. He flew out of the room and ran to the nurses station and told them I was having a stroke. That brought out the RRT (Rapid Response Team) in the S. Shore hospital in Wey. Mass. The RRT had only been used once before. That brought out a whole new set of eyes and ears and within minutes I was wheeled into the OR and had my left cerebellum removed. I was very close to losing my eye sight etc. As the surgeon said it was all "High Realestate" in that part of the brain. My family was devastated until the nurse came out and told them the surgery went exactly as planned and they wheeled me to the ICU. The rest is history although they never found out what caused the massive stroke. I was sent to a rehab hospital (Braintree MA) for 10 days and then sent home and I was part of a "study" done by Beth Isreal Hospital (Boston). |
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