I've had this song stuck in my head all day; either because when I got ready for this morning, I was listening to Ceremonials or because it's uplifting in a great way.
While at work, I got a text from my mom saying that my dad couldn't pick my brother up from school tomorrow because he was in the hospital. After trying to get a hold of him, I frantically called my little brother who didn't answer, and then called my older brother (yelled at him like a psycho on accident) before finding out he absolutely had no idea what was going on. Suffice it to say that I got emotional and then rushed to our local hospital.
Turns out he had two TIAs commonly know as 'mimic strokes.' And they are exactly what they sound like; they present exactly like a stroke would except they don't last very long, there are no side effects (loss of motor control, speech damage), and they don't damage any tissue in the body. What they say, however, is that a massive stroke may be on the horizon. What happens is that the clot/mass breaks up before it can cause permanent damage, and that's that for the time being.
The first TIA happened while he and a friend were driving to breakfast. He got into the wrong lane and couldn't figure out why, before losing the ability to form coherent sentences and his limbs went numb. Luckily there was someone else in the car and they were able to pull them to the side, take over and bring him to the hospital.
While my dad was being seen by the doctor in emergency, the other one hit. Same thing, he was talking but wasn't making sense, his limbs went numb, chest pains, and it felt like a balloon was expanding in his head. They had to admit him right away.
I sat with him for about seven hours, until visiting hours were over and he was settling down for bed. I'm exhausted.
If his MRI comes back clean and he has no relapse in the middle of the night (they test your cognitive, speech, and swallowing abilities every four hours), then he'll be discharged with a stroke prevention plan sometime tomorrow. If he's there past 10am, I'm going to go back and sit with him.
As weird as it sounds, but if this had to happen, I'm glad that it happened today. Tomorrow he would have been driving a total of 12 hours (six up and back), to pick up my brother and his roommate for winter break. If he had been by himself, who knows what would have happened; even worse, if Finn and Ricky had been in the car, things I can't even fathom what might have happened.
One of my worst fears was that my dad and I wouldn't be reconciled and something like this would happen. I feel so fortunate that we've been able to sit down and talk in the past few months, to try and work on rebuilding our relationship. If we hadn't and if things had been worse... I'm not sure how I would have been able to live with myself.
Please keep him and the rest of my family in your prayers.
