Kevin's stroke

Most of you know that Kevin suffered a stroke on Tuesday, Aug 17th at 9:45pm.  He was having back problems leading up to this and that night, he got up and his back tightened up which caused tons on pain and he went to his knee and then rolled onto his back.  I was walking a few steps ahead of him and turned to find him on the ground.  I immediately went to him saying, "What's wrong?  What happened?  Why are you on the ground?"  I have to say, at first I thought he was kidding with me.  He was rolling around on the ground and making noises and trying to say something.  He looked toward me and that's when it hit me that his face was not moving on the left side.  He tried to smile and his left side stayed in one place while the right moved as normal.  He got off the ground and I got him into the bathroom and continued to ask him "What's wrong?  What are you doing to your face?  Are you playing around with me?"  He was still slurring and not saying much.  I saw him try to pick up his toothbrush and realized he had no control of his left hand.  I called my parents frantically, assuming that Kevin would stop me if he was really playing a horrible joke on me.  He obviously didn't stop me and I began telling my mom what was happening.  I got off the phone with her and called 911 and then our neighbor to ask them to come stay with the kids while they slept. 

The ambulance (and fire truck and police officers) arrived a few minutes later and Kevin was evaluated at the house and soon transferred by ambulance to West Houston Medical Center, which I had never even heard of before this.  They immediately took him for a CAT scan which showed he was not bleeding in his brain.  After they evaluated him, they also concluded that it was a stroke.  He was a good candidate for tPA, which is a medicine that has been shown to reverse the symptoms of a stroke if taken within 3-4 hours of episode, as long as you are not on blood thinners, young, and mostly good health.  Because the side effects did include the possibility of him "bleeding out", it was a scary time while the administered it. 

Kevin was then transferred to Ben Taub by helicopter where he was for a week while they performed lots of tests, exams, x-rays, etc.  Besides the stroke being confirmed by the MRI, the Echo and TEE tests revealed that Kevin has a PFO (small hole in the heart that is present in ~15% of people) and a slightly enlarged right lower ventricle. This is not the reason for the stroke, but could have allowed the blood clot that probably formed in his legs to shoot up to the right side of his heart, move through the PFO to the left side and not get filtered through the lungs like it typically would. Instead it went to the right side of his brain, where the stroke occurred, causing the temporary paralysis on his left side. But, when you see him or talk to him now, you would not know that he had suffered a stroke! We are so thankful!



Things could have been so much worse. I realized this week that I was supposed to be out of town on business from 8/16-18, but because the event that I was attending was cancelled due to the tragedy in the Gulf, I was at home that night right where I was suppose to be…to take care of my husband and get help. Because Kevin got to the hospital quickly and was treated with tPA within the 3-4 hour window, it looks like he has no lasting side effects from the stroke. We are waiting for some blood tests and over the next few weeks/months, we will be getting more opinions from different Stroke specialists in Houston - we will be talking to Neurologists and Cardiologists.

Kevin is already back at work, taking it a little easy. He is on baby Asprin and a cholesterol medicine (even though he has cholesterol to be “envious” of according to the doctors) to help lower the risk of another stroke. We are being sensitive at this point to anything he is feeling, whether it’s a headache or light-headed. But overall, we are so pleased with where he is today…God was definitely watching over him and had a hand in all of this.

Kevin and I wanted to express our thanks to all of you for your prayers, love, concern, and support that you have given our family over the last 10 days. We knew that we were blessed prior to Kevin’s stroke, but it’s even more evident today. It's been overwhelming - all the prayers, visits, calls, texts, voice mails, emails, offers to help, meals, cards, flowers, etc is so much appreciated. Thanks to you all, I could be at the hospital with Kevin while our sweet kids, house, dogs, etc were being taken care of. Really, we couldn’t have made it through this scary time without you.