From the second I realized what was happening, time suddenly slowed down and sped up all at the same time. The ambulance arrived within minutes and the EMT confirmed what I had begun thinking. Dad was having a stroke. Quickly he was whisked away to Eastern Maine Medical Center in Bangor Maine with my mom and I following suit. The drive to Bangor is only about 35 minutes from Bucksport, where my parents live. I tend to estimate time it takes not miles travelled (and I will do this to give everyone a sense of how big the state of Maine is within the proximity of where we needed to travel to and from). I remember being calm on the drive, into what I call “the big city”. I sent a text to my brother PJ who lives and operates a bed and breakfast, The LimeRock Inn, in Rockland Maine with his partner Frank, to call me as soon as possible. He was still sleeping though and so I thought I’d give him until 7 am before calling, if I had not heard from him by then. I was so calm still.
By the time I parked the car and went into the hospital to find my mom (whom I had dropped off at the main entrance), my brother had woken up and called me. Delivering bad news has never been my strong suit, but to be honest who’s strong suit is it? PJ and I had a childhood friend who committed suicide when he was 19 and as I was on the phone with my brother this early winters morning I remembered having to tell him the news of our friend David so many years earlier. I paused for a moment and simply said, “Dad had a stroke and we are at the hospital.” He replied with an almost childlike shock as anyone would when presented with unsettling news, “What?” I truly think in times like this everyone needs the initial statement repeated so our mind can begin to process what has been said to us, so that afterwards we are not questioning did I hear that right or did I misinterpret what was said? I repeated and explained Dad was in the emergency room and as soon as I found out more I would call him. Rockland is an hour and a half from Bangor.
By the time I found Mom in the emergency room Dad was done in triage and was being brought into the room where we were. At that point he still could not speak, only mumbling with the occasional yes/no, could not move his right hand but his right leg he could elevate about 2 inches for 5 seconds. The CatScan revealed a probable blood clot on the left front side of his brain. The Doctor came in and said he suffered a massive ischaemic stroke and since Dad was in the beginning stages of the stroke there was a good chance they could break up the clot in his brain with, as he called them, “Powerful blood clot busting meds.” It's called tPA (tissue plasminogen activator) and there are several different versions of this available. They are part of a group of thrombolytic drugs and there is usually only a 3-4 hour window in the beginning of the stroke where this medication should be administered for it to be effective. We were told Dad was a good candidate and so the drug was administered quickly.
Here's where things get complicated. There is a Doctor at Maine Medical in Portland Maine who does a procedure whereby he can go in with a catheter and remove a blood clot. The Doctors in Bangor had been in contact with the Doctors in Portland and Portland decided to take on Dad's case. The ER Doctor said it worth taking a shot at this and that Dad was a vibrant man. We agreed. So the decision was made to life flight Dad to Portland. A little known fact about Dad is he hates flying. It is probably one of the few things he just absolutely hates. And here he was now being readied to fly in a helicopter to Portland.
Mom and I watched as they got him ready to fly. As of today's date, Dad does not remember the ride he was about to take. As soon as they wheeled him up to the top floor where the helicopter pad was, Mom and I were back in the car. We had to stop back at the house to pick up a few things, first, so we backtracked to Bucksport and then headed to Portland which is two and a half hours from my parents’ house. I had been on the phone with PJ and he agreed to meet us there, he's an hour and a half from Portland. Everywhere you want to go in Maine seemingly takes an hour to two hours to get to if you don’t live right around either, Portland, Augusta, Bangor or Lewiston/Auburn.
I was very calm and very quiet on the drive down, of that I remember. It was cold out, with the clearest of blue skies. PJ had voiced some concerns regarding the stroke, what was going to happen, what could happen, what the after effects would be. I re-assured him to just wait and see, because we knew very little and rather than freak out about unknowns we needn't think of yet, we needed to remain calm. At this point, on the surface, I still had it in my head that Dad was going to Portland, they were going to remove a blot clot and he would just have a long, slow recovery. I wouldn't let myself go to any other darker place. Secretly though, I was doing the same thing my brother was doing and falling apart with a million and one situations and scenarios running rampant through my head. You would never know it from talking to me though. I was on an auto pilot I had learned after an experience with someone who I was involved with that lived in another state. A couple of years prior, I had driven back and forth out of state on three separate occasions, all with disastrous results and each drive back to Maine had fortified how I was able to function on this, the day Dad had the stroke.
Mom and I arrived at the hospital shortly before PJ. You don't realize how big hospitals are until you have to park and then weave your way through a maze of corridors and floors just to get where you need to go. We were told Dad was in the emergency room, so we went there. The emergency room told us he was up in cardiac intensive care, so we went there and after what seemed like an eternity found him. He woke up when he saw us and waved his fingers on his left hand. They had him hooked up to what seemed like every tube and machine out there. While waiting for PJ we spoke with the Pulmonary Doctor who was, as he described himself, just the backup assistant. He explained that since the stroke was caused by a carotid dissected artery on the left side of his brain they couldn’t go in and do the procedure he was sent there for. Both my brother and I have a close friend who suffered this same kind of stroke (I say “same kind”, even though every situation and person is different) and several years later he is doing amazing. We were told there was also nothing that could be done to repair this artery. The CT scan revealed a large section on the front left side of his brain that was dead. Gone. Not coming back. There was some swelling on his brain and we were told he needed to stay in intensive care until the swelling had stopped and they were sure there would be no bleeding. Once the meds given in Bangor had worked their way out of his system, and there was no swelling or bleeding, they could put him on blood thinners. I’m sure I could be more technical or descriptive in what I’m writing. I’m sure there are details I’m leaving out. But this is how I remember it all.
The Pulmonologist gave us the impression that there wasn't much more to do with Dad and that he would most likely never be able to live on his own and it was probable he wouldn't recover much more than the way he was now. I remember Mom wept and I had to calm her down. I didn't want any of us to cry in front of Dad, no matter the news or situation. Then we talked to the Neurologist. I swear it seems like Doctors play good cop, bad cop, because as nihilistic as the Pulmonologist was (and he even commented that he didn't want to be a downer but...), was also how much more optimistic the Neurologist was. He had viewed Dad’s chart and condition and felt he would be able to regain some of the motor functions that were no longer there and make somewhat of a substantial recovery. It made me recall a scene from the TV show Lost where Jack, a Doctor, delivers some frank news to a patient and his father chastises him for not being a little more empathetic to the patient.
"You might want to try handing out some hope once in awhile. Even if there's a 99% possibility that they're utterly hopelessly screwed, folks are much more inclined to hear that one percent chance that things are going to be okay."
"That's false hope dad."
"Maybe, but it's still hope."
Personally, I would much rather err on the side of hope every time. PJ made it to the hospital and finally there we were, our little family, standing around Dad, the man who did everything for us, who was everything to us all, now held captive by this crippling stroke.
We stayed at the hospital until it got dark out, helpless to do much more than what we were already doing. Both PJ and I had dogs that needed to be taken care of, Mom needed to eat as she is diabetic. It was agreed that Mom would come home with me that night, and then PJ would take her to his place for the weekend as Rockland was a little closer to Portland and Mom didn't do too well on long car rides. We said goodbye to Dad, assuring him we would be back the following morning and left to begin the long drive back up north.
When Mom and I eventually got home, it was dark, as dark as it had been when I woke up that morning. I brought Dad's clothes, from the emergency room that morning, in from the car. It already seemed like an eternity ago that everything had happened. As I walked through the dining room where I discovered him on the floor, helplessly trying to pull himself up I paused. Everything was as it had been when we left so many hours earlier, the table, which I had moved to allow access for the stretcher was still out of place, his shoes were still piled in the corner against his closet door. I moved the dining room table back to its correct spot and put his shoes away. So much had happened and not happened. There were still so many questions to ask, so much to process, so much of everything swirling around in my mind. Life can change in the blink of an eye. It did for Dad and all of us on that first day.
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