June 29th--- The Stroke

I started this blog for friends and family who want to follow my father's progress after his stroke on June 29th. My goal is to leave most of our emotions out of these updates and to not get too personal but to get to the point. I also thought when my father recovers----it will be a good journal for him to read.

So as I mentioned, my father had a stroke on June 29th. Thank God my mom was home and was quick to call 911. She saved his life. He was at the hospital within 1/2 hour of showing stroke symptoms. They were able to give him TPA (a clot busting drug) since it was within the 3 hour time frame. We watched in amazement as it worked it's magic right before our eyes (I wanted to add that his grandfather had this same stroke at 62 and his mother had the same stroke, although later in life). He spent the next few days in a room a step down from ICU. They found out that his carotid artery on the right side was open less than 1mm. They put him on heparin. My Dad's options were surgery to clean it out or a stent. He chose a stent. They decided to wait a few days to give him some time to recover a bit before the procedure. He was fine. The day he went in for surgery he was listed on his charts as "independent". Walking around, eating, writing, reading, talking, laughing, etc......no symptoms from the stroke other than some weakness.