Thankful And Blessed
The Day I Had A Stroke
On November 5, 2020 I had a stroke. It seems odd, foreign, an out of body like experience for me to actually admit this. Saying the words out loud make it no more real.
I knew something was wrong that morning. My left arm and leg seemed like foreign operatives compared to the rest of my body, out of sync with my mental commands to do my will — not theirs.
My husband, so used to my extremely good health and physical fitness did not believe me at first. I guess he thought I was joking. And then he didn’t. Off to the emergency room we sped down windy country roads, the only kind we have in the desolate place we call home.
It seemed like forever, this 30 minute drive through the country with pastures and hay fields and livestock grazing on frosted fields. Why didn’t we call the squad? I guess I still didn’t think it was an emergency. My mind denied it could be so.
Masked, with my husband at my side, we entered the ER where they asked coronavirus symptom questions: sore throat? cough? unusual fatigue? No. No and no. Then on to the ER Private Room that would be my temporary home for a few hours as I went through tests.
All the while I prayed and I felt the prayers of all my friends surrounding and enfolding me, keeping me from despair, as I struggled to understand what had happened. In the blink of an eye on a day like all the others.
Yes, I’d had a stroke the test results confirmed. A stroke? Me, the person who runs a rescue farm for 80+ animals pretty much on my own. Me, the stubbornly independent woman my difficult life has crafted me to be. I had a stroke?
I struggled through a haze of foggy information I’d unknowingly collected throughout my years on this earth about stroke “victims”, what this could mean for me, my husband, the animals in my care.
My thoughts first raced to the worst: paralysis, cognitive issues, permanent life-altering residual effects. We’d have to move from our farm quickly or I’d have to stay in an extended care facility. A nursing home? No thank you!
Still, I didn’t panic. I felt prayers and love and concern by those I love most lifting me up before God when I could not find the words myself. In the midst of a very singular situation I felt community.
Community is not a usual place I live comfortably in. I am cautious to call someone friend. Even more so to call someone a good friend, to confide in someone is somewhat foreign to me.
I have always been mostly singular, the caretaker. The strong one that others lean on. But here I was in an awkward one size fits all “gown” with monitors and leads trailing off into machines beeping at me 24/7.
So this is how it feels to be vulnerable without your permission, to be in the hands of strangers you must trust with your very life. Literally. While I have spent countless hours in ER’s and hospital rooms as a volunteer chaplain, bereavement facilitator, and with my terminally ill son, it’s different being on the other side — the patient not the visitor free to walk away. I felt vulnerable and exposed and a bit too impatient to be a patient. At least on the inside.
For 2–1/2 days I rested and prayed and talked to friends. I started new meds and felt strength come back into my left side. To say I am thankful is such an injustice to the miracle that occurred after that day like so many others. The day I had a stroke.
This stroke was a warning “shot”. If I’d continued living my life as I had been — untreated — the stroke’s effects could have been permanently debilitating. I have no physical residual effects though I do believe I have a bit more mental slowness grasping certain words out of thin air. Perhaps only I notice. Perhaps others notice too. They don’t admit to it if they do.
I had a stroke. Saying the words out loud still makes it no more real. But there are some things regarding the reality of the stroke that I do allow myself to feel at times, and they bring me to my knees thankful to God and blessed to be whole again.
Thankful for what is and for what could have been but is not.
copyright December 2020 Jackie Deems