A Stroke of Bad Luck

My last post was seven weeks ago yesterday.  Phil was coming off a huge win at the indoors, and we did everything we had planned to do on our last couple of days in Boise....saw a couple of movies, got a couple of good workouts in and enjoyed a couple of relaxing, stress free days.  The one thing we didn't plan on was me having a stroke on the way home!

Long story short...

I had a non descript headache all week, nothing out of  the ordinary, and a couple of Aleve usually made me forget about it for a while. But it was persistent.  I worked out everyday there, watched all Phil's matches, and ended the week on Saturday with a two hour hitting workout with Phil and 2 other guys. I felt great. We woke up early Sunday morning to catch an early flight home and I was not feeling well at all. My head hurt, my vision was way off in my right eye and I had a slight sense of disorientation. I had a couple of waves of nausea that never materialized.  At one point I had slight and brief garbledness of my speech.  I just wanted to get home. We made it to Atlanta and I felt worse.  Worried, Phil had the gate attendant get the paramedics to check me out. After being wheeled to a private room at the Atlanta airport and having all my vitals and an EKG taken, they thought it was ok for me to make the 90 minute flight to Naples.  Still unaware of what was happening to me, and only wanting to crawl into our own bed, I promised Phil that if I still felt bad in the morning we'd go to the ER. We woke up early Monday morning we went straight to the hospital. From there the past 7 weeks have been a bit of distant memory.  I had experienced a hemorrhagic stroke.  A bleeding stroke in my brain.  WHAT???  I was taken by ambulance to the bigger downtown hospital where I stayed for 3 days. Since then I have pretty much been home recovering and resting. The doctors all said it would be a 10-12 week recovery of no tennis and light exercise.  So I have been walking...and walking...and walking.  We have not gotten a definitive reason as to why the stroke occurred, but we have been able to rule so things out.  I was on a heart monitor for 30 days, and thankfully there was no sign of afib or arrhythmia.  I am on a couple of heart meds and hope to be off of them soon. I will find out Monday if the latest MRI shows that the blood has resorbed from my brain, and if so, what my next move is.  Another appointment with the EP cardiologist happens on October 23 to discuss other potential answers and/or problems.  I have no side effects or residual effects from what could have been a grave condition.  I am very blessed, and know that all the healing prayers have aided in my speedy recovery.  I am beginning to feel "normal" again...what ever that is!!??  I hope to be back hitting balls in about 3-4 weeks!

You just never know what's around the corner!