By Daniel Adams, August 8, 2019 — It’s my first day. I didn’t know what to expect. I could write about my stroke. Five years ago I had just returned from Indonesia. When I’d gotten back, I’d had the flu – I thought it was the flu. I didn’t pay it any attention, I just thought it would go away. But on December 26, 2015, I was working at Amazon. At first, I felt fine, I went on my break and felt fine. But five minutes after I came back it felt like somebody turned the lights off in my eyes. But I just thought “What is that?” and went back to work.
But the nature of the work was pulling things off the line. But about an hour later, I felt the same sensation in my eyes and everything went dark. I tried to speak, but I just mumbled. I started to feel very disoriented, and my right hand here, I held it in my hand because I felt like it fell off. I went, “Wow, what is that?” I fell to the ground, but my friend – I think his name was David – was there to catch me so I didn’t hit my head. I lay there on the ground, fully aware, but unable to move. While I lay there, waiting for the ambulance, I was wondering what was happening. I had never heard of a stroke. I didn’t know what a stroke meant. Well, I knew about sunstrokes but I never paid attention to strokes because I thought I ate good and took care of myself. All I knew was what was happening was bad.
The ambulance came and started asking me questions – What had happened, what I ate and was I aware of everything, and they took me to the nearest hospital. They kept me there for an hour, and then they transferred me to Robert Woods Hospital. I stayed there for three days, and they did all the tests on me and couldn’t find out where the stroke came from or what brought it on. So it was New Years’ evening. I was transferred from Robert Woods to McGee Rehabilitation Center in Center City where I stayed for six to seven weeks. During that time I had to learn how to walk again, write again, and talk again. Everything had changed, the whole world, my whole life.
After that period, I went home where I had to make some changes to the house – to get in and climb up the stairs. Then after I began my outpatient rehabilitation at McGee where I spent a further eight weeks, I made some progress with my legs and my speech, but my hand proved to be stubborn because I had a sublux. So even five years later on, it’s still not right yet, but I must say it’s much better. And if I had to do it all over again I would’ve paid attention, close attention, to the bad cough I had, the bad cold that was trying to warn me of the impending stroke that was to follow. So my advice to everyone is to pay attention to your health and go see the doctor even if you think it’s small and you think it’ll go away in a few days.
