If you have talked to my husband you might hear him say “I'm the luckiest guy I know.” At first you might think “awww how sweet,” but then when you hear why he says that...you will have a different take on it. At the age of 12, my husband was diagnosed a type 1, insulin dependent diabetic. At such a young age, he was informed of some tough things that he would have to endure in his lifetime due to this horrible disease. One of them is not a long healthy life. Diabetes is rough on your body. It’s a maddening disease. He had to grow up very quickly and realize that life isn't fair, but you have to make the most of it. Fast forward to the beginning of our relationship; he was 32 and was healthy (minus the stitches, many broken bones, and other injuries he’d experienced over the years). It was hard for me to wrap my head around diabetes at first, because my only diabetes experience was with my grandma and I knew it was difficult for her to adjust. So having found someone that I want to spend the rest of my life with being diabetic, it was a learning curve to say the least. So we knew that at some point in his life something drastic with his health would happen due to the diabetes. It’s a fun little waiting game. But what ultimately happened was not one we were remotely ready for. He had a massive heart attack at 40. And when I say massive, it was a "widow maker"; 95% blockage in the meat of his heart and 2 other 95% blockages. The craziest part.. he didn't even feel it. We were told by the hospital staff, had we not come in when we did I would have been making different arrangements that day. Imagine hearing that about your 40 year old husband (oh and I was 6 weeks pregnant with our daughter at the time). There were a lot of crazy things about that day. I happened to call him (in the moments following his "symptoms") to talk about work. Then he told me what had just happened to him. All things that were just strange but he normally wouldn't mention. For whatever reason I felt a strong need to get him to the hospital. He drove to the hospital; hindsight probably not our best decision. Why? Why did I feel that need? Why did he feel the need to tell me what happen? Why? They placed a stent in the LAD (the widow maker artery) and within hours he was walking, eating, like nothing happened. Then two days later they placed 3 more stents in another area of his heart. We walked out of the hospital like what just happened?! He was back to work less than a week later. Over the course of the next couple years he has had 6 heart catheterizations. One where they placed 3 more stents (which brought the total to 7). With close monitorying by the cardiologist, we were told some information that we had never heard before. “One of the main reasons that you had the heart attack was because of diabetes.” Excuse me? That wasn't in the pamphlet when you became a diabetic. It affects your circulatory system. My husband also had the privilage of having cardiac disease in his family history, so he just won the lottery of genetics. This is not why he says he is the luckiest man he knows. Due to having lots of check ups with his doctors to make sure that he is doing well, he started having a new symptom; headaches. He is not a headache person so this was something that his family doctor felt was worth looking into. Buckle up because this is where this story get good! The MRI revealed an aneurysm in his brain. Right carotid artery in the sinus region. I'm sorry… what? I remember that phone call with him telling me what the doctor said. Seriously? Heart and brain? Come on!!!!!!!! More imaging and a meeting with a neurosurgeon down at the University of Iowa. They decided they need to do an angiogram and see if there was anything that needed done. This was October of 2017. Once they went in they decided that the risk of medical intervention was higher than monitoring it because it was so small in size. Oh fun, now we get to sit and wait and hope nothing happens. So in February of 2018 another cardiac cath was done, which lead to some new medication, which lead to the worst headache of his life, which lead us to the er, which lead to them realizing that the aneurysm had grown 30%. Now what? Back to Iowa City a mere 6 months after being told we were going to wait a year. At that appointment it was decided that since it had gotten larger we needed to address it. At first the doctor suggested placing a stent but there were more long term risks (stroke, possibility of movement and so on). So because my husband is also a take charge kind of guy he asks for a more permanent correct. That option was a craniotomy and a clip of the aneurysm. Surgery was going to be brutal and so was recovery as they cut your skull open, but long term; less risks. And that was settled, Let's do the hard work now so long term there shouldn't be any. April 20th 2018; surgery day. The surgery was going to be 5 hours (waiting is not my forte) and we knew that recovery was going to be rough. 4 days in the hospital and 2-3 weeks recovering at home (not to mention a giant incision). Surgery went well but the aneurysm was a lot worse than expected. We were told at a later date that a rupture was imminent. Those aren't things you want to hear about your husband. So before we left the hospital they wanted to do another angiogram to make sure the surgery was a success. That Monday April 23rd they did a follow up angiogram where they had to place a stent, because they weren't satisfied with the previous surgery. The doctor came out and told me, and said that he would be resting for a while then back to our room. 20 minutes later that same doctor came back out and proceeded to tell me that my husband had become paralyzed on his left side and that they were taking him to ICU to monitor. Excuse me what?! Didn't you just come out and tell me things were ok?? I raced to ICU to hurry up and wait… an hour (actually 53 minutes - yes I was counting) Finally I was able to see him and they told us that he had responded well to some "clot busting" meds and had recovered. But when I saw him I knew he was not ok. He couldn't find where to look with his left eye (his right eye was still swollen from surgery) and he couldn't feel me touch his face. From there it went from 0 to 100 really quick. They did all the normal neuro testing and he had no feeling at all on his left side again. They asked him to bend his knee, “well that would require me to bend it.” Is this your hand? "Nope not mine." In moments we quickly realized that this was not good. I had to sign consent for them to go back in to correct this. So they whisked him away to hopefully remedy this. It was like watching a movie - total out of body experience. It was like midnight after being up all day, your body is just in utter shock. So we waited (one of our friends had been with us the whole time during this procedure). They brought him back and said things went well and informed us that this doesn't happen very often. They had found a clot inside of the stent and were able to remove it. He had recovered all feeling. The next 24 hours were beyond scary. We were on edge and just couldn't relax with the hopes that nothing would go wrong. We later discovered that this was a stroke. It caused a very large portion of his brain to die off; he is lucky because it was not his dominant side so he was able to completely recover (with a few glitches). Once we finally left the hospital (12 days later) we were sent directly to St Lukes for 6 days of inpatient therapy, followed by 8 weeks of outpatient physical and occupational therapy. He was off work for 6 weeks. He was able to go back part-time for a month then full time since the end of July. When we followed up with his surgeon he was amazed at how well he was going. The rarity of what happened is 2 out of 600 similar cases. My lucky husband was #2. Remember when I said my husband says he is the luckiest guy he knows… well know you know why Watching someone you love go through something like that is something I struggle to put into words. One of our friends said I had a front row seat to a horror film I didn't buy a ticket to. It was like a nightmare that you couldn't shake. It was an out of body experience for me for sure and I can't imagine what was going through my husband’s mind at the time. There are so many vivid memories that I have from those days in the hospital and those late night hours with horrible news being told to me. But there are so many things that took my breath away, like when he got up for the first time following the stroke. It reminded me of watching our daughter walk for the first time. That was a picture of what our future could have been. Could he do it? Would he struggle? But man, oh man, he walks just fine. Many people have asked us, “how do you do it?” You just do… that's how. You have no choice but to be strong and hope for the best because things could always be worse, right? I still get to take him to doctors appointments, I get to lay down next to him every night, I get to watch him be a daddy to our little girl. It could be worse… so much worse. I guess I am a lucky one too.
2 Comments
Jessi Mart
4/12/2019 08:28:28 am
Its a good one! I have read it many times and reread many of our posts about it and it still seems like I am reading it about someone else. Coming up on the anniversary of all of this and what a crazy year it has been!
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