Kate is under house a-rest!

It is Wednesday afternoon – a beautiful winter day. I look at the clock and realize I have to pick up my girls from school. I hurry outside – as much as I can hurry with a gimpy leg. It isn’t snowing, it isn’t raining – it is a perfect California day.

It had been a good day in every other respect too; no reason that disaster should strike. But disaster still struck. Isn’t that how it is – when you least expect it (of course if we “most expect it” we would be ready and disaster would usually be averted, right)?

I was headed to the car and talking on my cell phone to Tom, my editor, finalizing some details about my book – Paralyzed but not Powerless. It is scheduled to be out in 30 days and I was worried about whether we had the cover ready for Dottie, our cover designer, and the text ready for our Text designer, Sheryl. I thought I had all bases covered and besides I was using an ear piece with the phone as I talking.

Then suddenly something hit me on the side of my head. It hit me so hard I was stunned. It was the road. I was lying on my side – still talking to Tom! He was wondering if he should call 911. I was just trying to figure out how to get up.

Like a turtle on its back, I was paralyzed and, doggone it, I WAS powerless. Not a soul in sight to flip me over so I could get up. I almost changed the title of the book then and there – after all, I did have my editor on the line!

I refused to see a doctor. My "I'll be just fine" attitude along with a bag of ice, a handful of Tylenol, and an evening of rest cured me - or so I thought. The same idiotic attitude I demonstrated 11 years ago that led to my stroke.

Ron, my stroke survivor buddy in St. Louis, suggested – okay, he insisted – that I call the nurses hotline. I reluctantly did, feeling more like a fool than a patient (in fact Ron spoke to them before I called and then called me back insisting that I call them right then and there – which I did – miraculously getting the same person Ron had spoken to).

The bag of ice had helped but it didn't prevent the black eye I ended up with or the vomiting which started several days later. My family was insistent on my calling the doctor because I couldn’t walk a straight line and had fallen again. I had “vertigo” which is the medical word for a hyperactive merry-go-round in your head, complete with music. I knew I needed help and gave in to my friend Dyan's insistence and saw her neurologist who put me on bed rest. Why? Because Tylenol doesn’t cure a concussion! Hello!

After prescribing bed rest, he asked me, “Kate, what have you learned?” Without waiting for my reply he said, “Don’t walk and talk at the same time, you have to pay attention to what you are doing.”

“Fat chance,” I thought; but for once in my life I listened to my own message and decided that prevention was actually important. So here I am, not needing sympathy, but needing you to know that even the prideful and stubborn – especially the prideful and stubborn – need to check in immediately when symptoms tell you that something is wrong.

Steven, my husband is now taking care of the girls and realizing how much I really do every day as a survivor, housewife and who also has a profession (I cringe to think what the house will look like). So, my friends, until next month - it's back to bed for me and a gentle reminder to pay attention to each step we take. 

Email Kate at kadamson@strokenetwork.org.
Visit Kate’s website.