I was there from about 10:30 last night to noon today. His bed had been moved to be flat by the time I had got there last night. He slept decent from about 4 to 8 this morning. Uncomfortable and restless before that.

He is still having the same trouble talking and says his right arm/hand/leg are not quite normal. His right hand had less coordination as he ate a bowl of cereal and a cinnamon roll. He must eat right handed as he wanted to do that, but switched at times when having trouble.

He sat up and took his oxygen off while he ate, which was about 20 or 30 minutes without any noticeable change in his abilities. The nurse tweaked his blood pressure meds down slightly to bring his pressure down a bit, but his pressure went down to normal. This was at about the same time he ate sitting up and I didn’t notice any difference in abilities.

He is very bored and is worried about going stir crazy as he described it, especially if they decide that he has to lay flat on his back even longer than Thursday. And he is pretty worried about the future as far
as the uncertainty of whether he will have another stroke or not, and the doctors not knowing, etc.

Restful night, lots of good sleep for all of us.  There were no major heart episodes during the night, but cardiologists are doing a full scan of is heart right now.  Trying to get a good picture of just what is going on in the heart.  The heart beat tho steady is still considered irregular.  We may know more after the scan is complete.  When Tom woke up he seemed a bit more anxious and confused, but just know while talking with the cardiologist he made more complete sentences than i had heard before.  Main doctors (the neurology folks) will be in later for more consultation.  Remember this is just a layman’s report, open to all kinds of misinterpretation!

During the night he had a period where his heart ran too fast and irregularly due to the artificial elevation of his blood pressure. This was not unexpected, but did take some intervention. This morning the doctor came in and pretty much reassured us that he is getting the best treatment available. They did try to insert another sensor (arterioline) to allow them to better and more quickly monitor the way the meds are working. Unfortunately they couldn’t get the probe to go through the arteries because of the constriction caused by the meds…that’s not the way they would say it, but I think that’s stating it somewhat correctly in layman’s terms.

Poor guy-he really didn’t want them to do it, willingly accepted their advice, and then saw it fail to work, leaving him with some more sore spots and more reason to be discouraged. Overall condition seems to be better, body control and language definitely better than a day earlier.

Tom didn’t have a very good day. Speech wasn’t good and later in day his right hand became numb again. He had been moved out of ICU and to floor 6, but we’re now back up in ICU. The doctors are going to try to raise his blood pressure again, on oxygen, and his point of entry for surgery began bleeding so he’ll need to lay flat again for six hours. It began bleeding because Tominsisted getting out of a chair and on bed nearly by himself. His strength in his right arm wasn’t there to help him pull up, and the patch came off. The bleeding was stopped, and no major issues there. Just lay flat for six hours. He needs sleep, but won’t really let himself do that.

Keep praying

After a relatively good night,  things have rapidly declined.  The doctors decided they had done all they could do for him in the ICU and transferred him to a more standard room.  Throughout the day his stroke-like symptoms increased and they have now taken him in for another cat scan and then back to ICU.  Tom is understandably devastated.  We ask for your heartfelt prayers.

Where do I begin? You can’t imagine how BLESSED we feel. Each of you have wrapped your arms around us, and that feels so good. The events of the past few days have been the scariest and hardest days of my life. Truly God has been at work. So keep the prayers going, it’s working!!!!! Currently, Tom is sleeping- finally. He is so scared to go to sleep, and he won’t wake up the same or worse. The night was very rough up to about 7:30 this morning. They took him to have a scan at about 2 in the morning, thinking he was bleeding somewhere. That came back okay. He was scheduled for another MRI at 8am. and it didn’t show anything new or out of the ordinary. Since 11am, Tom has been talking better and can identify object, knows his name, lift his arms, wiggle his toes,and stick out his tongue. He’s very groggy and working to figure out the time line of events since 1pm Tuesday. He was even given food, not much but some. I am hopeful that he’ll have a restful night and continued improvement tomorrow. Oh, they also put him on a continuous EEG to help identify if and when seizures are caused by TIA’s or vise versa. Medicines will then be determined how to control events and surgery is no longer an option.

I will be going home tonight to sleep, I’ve been up since 6:30 am Tuesday. Peggy and Verle will keep watch over my precious Tom.

God Bless to everyone and keep praying We feel it.
Love you all so much Karen

We’ve talked with Dr. Thorell and final very good about the direction he’s planning to take. The angiogram is scheduled for 1pm (doctor time). At this time no intervention will be done unless it looks to be the only option. The EEG done on Saturday showed the seizures could be present. It’s all very perplexing. What’s causing the aphasia’s, is everything related, one causing the other, or non of the above. What we do know is that something isn’t right, but where’s the source?

Thanks for the prayers, Karen

Tom has been moved to the Med Center and is in the Clarkson Tower.
We’re waiting for the doctor to get out of surgery and come talk to us.
It looks as if the angiogram will be tomorrow, but the time hasn’t been confirmed. Likely early afternoon 12:30 ish. After they complete the test, they’ll come talk to us about their findings and go from there.

The Med Center is a very big place. I got lost a bit finding my way to his room the first time through. Discovered it was easiest to park in the purple or orange parking lot just off 42nd street. Not sure why, but they put him in the Peter Kiewit &Sons, Inc. Suite.

That’s all I have for now.
Karen

Tom went back into the hospital Thursday afternoon because he was experiencing the speech confusion and had tingling in his right hand again. Tom was put back on IV of Heparin and that seems to keep him stable with no major issues. His ability to say what he wants is what’s most affected, and driving him crazy. A speech therapist has been working with him to help with that. Another round of test were given and some new ones like an EEG. The tests have mostly shown normal functions, except for the left carotid artery where there is narrowing up near the brain. So, after several consultations with a variety of doctors, the plan is to move Tom to the med center tomorrow. On Tuesday, a specialist will perform a more evasive procedure to get a better look of the artery. This specialist is the only one in Nebraska that does surgery in this area, so if repair work is needed when they look on Tuesday this doctor can go ahead and repair things. The test has a risk factor of 1 in 200 for having a full blown stroke. Tom so badly wants to get out of the hospital and see if he can work. He knows his thought process isn’t where it needs to be yet, and wonders how much will come back to perform at work successfully to keep his job.

The nurses and doctors have continually given Tom great advice and to have patience. Recovery will take time. So, after Tuesday we’ll know if there’s more damage and if/what will be the next step. Tom can’t continue to live with an IV of heparin to control things.

The boys and I were visiting tonight and brought cards. The speech person suggested to play games to help with memory, quickness, and etc. We played a few games of trash and Tom could follow along pretty well. Nerts was a bit more challenging, we went very slow so he wouldn’t get confused. He enjoyed the card playing.

I’ll let everyone know how things turn out.

Praying hard, Karen

[This was sent via email to Dave from Tom]

They ran a whole raft of tests, including an EKG, CAT scan, MRI, and carotid and artery echo tests. None of them showed any kind of fatty blockage, which is why they sent me home the next day. By the time I showed up, I had nothing other than my symptoms to describe, and they were looking for all the dangerous contributors (such as the hair in the drain). Lacking that problem, they basically said I might or might not have more symptoms in the future; the “top” risk factor (on top of a bunch of them that I don’t have) is the presence of an event.

So, on Saturday I got a totally different one. No phyisical ramifications at all–numbness, dizzy spells, thick tongue, or the rest–instead, I just couldn’t talk right. But it’s all apparently the same thing, where a hunk of the brain temporarily has to come up with a new source of blood from one of the other four “pillars” of arteries. After another CAT scan at admittance last night, the doctors immediately planned to do another MRI concentrating on heart/neck/base of skull, including a dye (‘A’ something or other). The cardiac surgeon believes one of the four arteries (I’m not sure…perhaps left carotid) has in infarction, where blood cells have intruded between the layers of the vessel barriers, and have gradually (or suddenly) displaced the normal flow of the artery. He has another test that is supposed to verify the flow characteristics tomorrow, along with a far less pleasant one (previously scheduled) to check on cardiac function through a probe in the throat. Not looking forward to that one.

If it ends up being what he thinks it is, the primary treatment is one (or both) of two blood thinner regimens, which is supposed to gradually displace the dead end intrusion in the layers of the blood vessel, allowing the main path to open back up. Or something like that. I’m pretty sure I butchered that all pretty badly.

Regarding the statin, they do schedule liver function tests periodically, and I have a more detailed liver function test coming up already. The discontinued the statin due to a minor anomaly in one of the liver readings, and there is further testing to be done.

So far they said I don’t get to miss election duty, but I’m not you sure I’ll even get out by Tuesday.