Beginning on the evening of November 1, Tom suffered what were thought to be a series of TIA’s Transient ischemic Attacks), which caused slurred speech and somewhat affected his ability to use his right side. He was taken to Immanuel hospital in Omaha and released again.  On Saturday, the 3rd,  he had a second event,  some tests were made, and he was released again on Tuesday.  Later in the week, he was again admitted to Immanuel  after another event.  After each event was over, Tom’s normal functioning would return, and he was suffering no pain.  However, the tests taken at Immanuel failed to show the cause of Tom’s problems.
On  Monday, November 12, Tom was transferred from Immanuel to the Medical Center at Clarkson (Omaha) for an angioplast, to try to determine the specific cause of his problems. Dr. Thorell, a highly reputed neurosurgeon, found a “hard place” in the artery behind Tom’s left eye. Surprisingly, the procedure shows that Tom’s body has formed collateral arteries that have been bypassing the blockage and feeding his brain. Tom has no plaque in the arteries of his brain, and Dr. Thorell believes that the blockage and collateral arteries are old, perhaps even congenital.
Because of the procedure, Tom was experiencing severe symptoms, so Dr. Thorell tried to put a probe through the blockage to open it up, but couldn’t push through and didn’t want to push harder for fear of rupturing the artery, which could have resulted in death. The doctor went around to the point of the blockage from the back and tried to open it with a wire, but that, too, was unsuccessful.  At this point, Verle and I left from the San Diego airport to fly back to be with Tom.
Tom was placed in ICU with  IV’s and other medication. He was communicating and moving pretty well when we arrived on Wednesday.  On Thursday, November 16, they tried to move Tom down to a regular hospital room, hoping that movement and therapy would help him to function normally again. However, his right hand went numb, he lost his ability to communicate, and they had to move him back to ICU.  Tests the next morning showed that Tom has had a moderately severe stroke.
Dr. Thorell says that Tom doesn’t follow the normal pattern in any way — he is young, has no health issues or bad habits, is a runner, and his body is in excellent shape except for the blockage. Dr. Thorell phoned all over the world for advice, and on Friday, the 16th they started a regimen to raise Tom’s blood pressure to try to get his body to open up the blockage and/or form more or larger collateral arteries.  Since then, Tom has slowly regained most of his speech and most of the functioning of his right hand.  However, from time to time he experiences quite severe agitation and at times has a lot of confusion or becomes “out of it” for a short period of time.  Each time he comes back as strong as before and continues improving.  The doctor says that current tests (November 26) show no more deterioration.  He believes that these episodes are due to the medication rather than to additional strokes.