6. Chapter Six
Chapter Six
Meg
“ T he CT scan of your neck indicates that you’ve dissected your right carotid and right vertebral arteries,” said the ER doc who looked nothing like Lance and more like a blurry grandfather. “Though your brain scan is clear, your symptoms indicate you’ve had a TIA. And your blood pressure is too high. I’m going to have to admit you.”
Dissected arteries? I didn’t know arteries could be affected just because a car braked hard. And what had he said? TIA?
I’d heard that term before but couldn’t recall what it stood for. In fact, I don’t think my mind was firing on all cylinders. “What’s a TIA?” I asked, sounding a bit garbled and spaced out.
“It’s an acronym for transient ischemic attack—a mini-stroke—one that doesn’t necessarily leave you paralyzed.”
Oh, no. People my age didn’t have strokes. “I don’t think I had a TIA.”
Nonetheless, I was confused, totally dazed, my head still pounded. The whole experience was unreal. When we arrived at the ER door, they had to put me in a wheelchair because my left leg gave out. But it couldn’t have been a stroke. I was way too young. “Wait a minute. I think my mom had this same thing last week but they told her she just had a migraine.”
Please be a migraine.
“Did they do a CT of her neck and head?” asked the doctor.
“I think so.” What was it she’d told me? She’d been in the ER and had both a CT and an MRI. But I’m positive she only mentioned her head. Good thing Mom didn’t have high blood pressure, I guess.
The doctor patted my shoulder. “Well, I can’t speak to what happened to your mother, but you are lucky because your friend acted quickly.”
“Good morning,” said the overly chipper nurse who came into my room before dawn. “I need to take some blood.”
No wonder people complained about not being able to sleep in hospitals. Couldn’t the bloodletting wait until after breakfast? I held out my arm, feeling like vampire fodder. I could swear they’d taken a pint of blood since last night.
After I was admitted, I called Mom. Of course, she wanted to hop on a flight immediately, but there was a lightning storm in Denver and all the planes had been grounded, which was probably a blessing. My mother had hardly been home in the past several weeks, and she needed some down time—the woman needed to go on the cruise for some mega destressing, but that didn’t happen because she was married to her damned job.
“When can I go home?” I asked while the blood pressure cuff on my other arm started inflating.
I winced as the nurse inserted the needle and drew the plunger outward. “I’m not sure. The referring doctor recommended you be seen by a neurologist and a vascular surgeon.”
“I don’t need surgery, do I?”
Once the vial was full of dark-red blood, she pulled out the needle and wrapped my arm. “That’s probably best answered by the doctors. At least I can say you’re not scheduled for surgery.”
The blood pressure cuff deflated and the monitor read 140 over 89. Damn. I’d been having trouble with high blood pressure since graduate school. My father suffered from hypertension as well, not that he ever complained about it much to me. I guess I’d have to let him know about this incident—later. After I was home and back to one hundred percent. I didn’t want him feeling like he had to fly across the Pacific Ocean or anything.
Not that he would. I was always the one who flew to Australia.
I lit up my phone—the battery had fallen to ten percent. First, I sent a text to Elaine, politely asking her to bring in a charger.
Next, I held my breath while I opened Facebook. When the bubble indicated someone had messaged me, my heart jumped onto a treadmill, beating out of rhythm, and making the machine beside my bed beep erratically. I clicked open messenger while taking deep breaths to settle back into a steady beat that wouldn’t send the nurses charging in here with a defibrillator .
Still, my hands were shaking and if I weren’t in the hospital, I’d jump out of bed and launch into the Electric Slide. I knew the connection we had on the cruise in Bermuda meant something!
Lance: Hey, Meg, thanks for friending me. I’ve been thinking about you a lot and feel bad about how we left things. I didn’t mean to be a jerk. Glad we’re still friends.
I reread his note, mentally accepting the apology, thrilled about being friends. I guess given the six hundred miles between us, that was better than zilch. Besides, neither one of us made any promises. Maybe we could be friends with benefits? Alternatively, maybe I just had a TIA and still wasn’t thinking straight?
I replied: Hey, great to hear from you. I’m sorry to bug you but I’m in the hospital—dissected carotid and vertebral arteries. The ER doc said I had a TIA. I’m sure you probably hate hearing from friends about health stuff, but can you give me the inside scoop about this?
Of course, he didn’t respond right away and by the time Elaine showed up with a charger, my phone was dead.
She took charge of plugging it in. “How are you doing?”
The usual came to mind—scared, freaked out, and anxious about when or if I’d get another message from Lance. My head was still pounding as well, but not wanting to sound like a complainer, I replied, “Aside from my brain being in a fog as if I’m in the Twilight Zone, I’m great. Ready to run a marathon.”
“Right. When was the last time you ran anywhere?”
I snorted. “I think I ran to the bathroom a week ago.”
She slid into a guest chair that looked like a recliner. “TMI, girlfriend.”
“You asked.”
“Is your mom coming?”
“She couldn’t get a flight last night, then I told her not to. I mean, I’m sitting up and my vision is clearer. Besides, she’s so stressed at the moment, the last thing she needs is to worry needlessly because of me.”
“You’re her only daughter. She’s predisposed to worry and now you’re in the hospital. Grave concern is appropriate in this case. Heck, I’m still gravely concerned.”
A doctor came in and introduced himself as a neurologist. Elaine slipped out, saying she had to get back to work. I watched her leave. Damn, why didn’t I ask her to trade places with me ?
He took me through a series of tests, including the ability of my arms to resist pressure up, down, in, out. He used a penlight to look into my eyes. I told him I’d had some blurriness and had lost sight in my right eye for a few minutes last night. He had me walk across the floor, which I did without any problem. Thank heavens my left leg was back to normal.
He studied the notes on his tablet. “Do you routinely suffer from migraines?”
“Yes.”
“What do you take for them?”
I took the same thing my mother did. “Two ibuprofen and two acetaminophen. If that doesn’t help, I take two Benadryl and go to bed.”
“Have you ever taken migraine medication?” he asked.
“Nope. I’ve never seen a neurologist, either.”
“Interesting. Well, there’s a new medicine available that is effective for patients with vascular issues. I think you might see an improvement if you’d like to try something new.”
Now I’ve been classified as having vascular issues? God! “Sure, if you think it will help.”
“I’ll write a prescription,” he said, reading again. “There’s a note from the ER doc that says your mother had a similar incident about a week ago?”
“She did—not from whiplash but hers happened when she was working out.”
“Did she have carotid and vertebral dissections as well?”
I was thinking a little clearer now, and I was positive she said the ER in Denver only scanned her head. “They didn’t find anything with Mom, but last night the doctor in the emergency room said dissections would have shown up on a CT of the neck, right?”
“Correct. At least yours were in the neck.”
“I’m pretty sure Mom only had her head scanned.”
“Hmm.” The doctor tucked his tablet under his arm. “I believe we might better understand your situation if we knew if your mother had a dissection or not. Do you think she could get a CT of her neck… today ?”
I shrugged. My mom abhorred doctor appointments, but neither of us had a run-of-the-mill headache. “I could call her and ask.”
“Good. Let me know what she says—as well as her results.”
“How do I reach you?” I asked.
“You can send a message to my office through the patient portal. In the meantime, I’m going to order some blood tests. ”
I glanced at the purple bruise where they took blood last night. “For what?”
The neurologist stepped toward the door like he had somewhere else to go. “Just some standard tests to rule out the big things like Lupus and protein imbalances.”
After he left, the nurse drew more blood. My phone had enough charge for me to call Mom and ask her to get a CT of her neck. Of course, she balked, so I told her it was an emergency because the neurologist desperately needed her results right away to help with my diagnosis. I also reiterated that I definitely did not want her to fly to La Crosse. She’d been pretty sketchy about what was going on in Philly, but I could tell by the sound of her voice that she was more stressed than usual. At least she was home for the weekend, and that’s where I wanted her to stay.
Thank God she agreed rather than charge up here in her battle armor.
When I checked Facebook, Lance had messaged me again.
His reply: A TIA is caused by a sudden blockage of blood flow to the brain and doesn’t last long. It sounds like they’re taking care of you. I hope so. Miss U.
Me: I’m dazed and my head aches, but I want to go home, so that’s a good sign, right?
I waited, noticing there wasn’t a green dot by his name, so he had to be offline.
Smiling, I typed another line: Miss you, too.
After I ate a French dip for lunch, the vascular surgeon came in. The man hardly looked at me and didn’t refer to his tablet like the neurologist. He told me he wasn’t convinced that I’d had arterial dissections and that he disagreed with the ER doc about the TIA diagnosis.
In his estimation, since I suffered from migraines, the little bit of whiplash from Elaine’s hard braking made a mega headache come on and I ought to be fine in a day or two. He had the audacity to roll his eyes and tell me a braking incident definitely would never cause simultaneous dissections and that the radiologist must have been mistaken. Then he decided to discharge me with some minor restrictions—such as no hard braking when riding in a car, and no amusement park rides…
“Just to exercise caution,” he said .
I squinted at him, a ping pong ball bouncing from one side of my brain to the other. How could two doctors have such differing opinions within the span of a couple of hours? Since he was a vascular expert, did his diagnosis override the other two docs?
Did he expect me to tell all the bad drivers out there not to run stop signs? “Do I need to follow up?”
“Not with me. You’ll get discharge instructions from the nurse,” he replied, walking out the door.
I stared at his vanishing white coat. He didn’t even ask me if I had questions. His visit couldn’t have lasted more than five minutes and now I was totally confused. But what about the neurologist who insisted Mom get the CT of her neck? Don’t these doctors talk to each other? This guy didn’t even ask me to describe the event or the pain or the numbness in my leg or the blindness in one eye. Did he even read the notes? Did he look at the CAT scan images?
It stung like a slap to the face to have the surgeon walk into this room, take one look at a healthy young adult female and decide I was one of those women who complained about every little ache and was not to be taken seriously. Furthermore, I could swear on a Bible I had just been victimized by medical gender bias!
My face burned as I stared down at my hospital gown and the white cotton blanket over my lap. Mom always complained that doctors made her feel like a hypochondriac, and right now, sitting here alone with machines beeping behind me, I knew exactly what she meant. I’d just experienced the most frightening and painful incident in my life and it seemed as if nobody could agree about what was wrong with me, or at least nobody knew how to treat it. If it weren’t for the IV in my arm, I might have walked out right here and now.
What really happened in the car last night? What had caused so much excruciating pain? The blindness in one eye and the weakness in my left leg? Had the ER doc been mistaken? Was the radiologist’s report way off? If so, why was my brain still foggy and hanging out in the land of Aquarius?
Since Lance hadn’t responded to my latest Facebook message, I Googled “TIA.”
At the very top of my search it read: “A transient ischemic attack (TIA) is a stroke that lasts only a few minutes. It occurs when the blood supply to part of the brain is briefly interrupted. TIA symptoms, which usually occur suddenly, are similar to those of stroke but do not last as long. ”
The following line stopped my breath, chills slithering up my arms: “ TIA’s are often ignored which is a critical mistake .”